Baker, Jim: Ministry From Matthew-05 ~ Matt 24:1-14

I'm sure that we all know that we're turning now to the first fourteen verses of Matthew chapter twenty four. Matthew chapter twenty four, and we're reading from the first fourteen verses. Matthew twenty four, verse one: And Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world, or of the age? And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that he 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, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended and shall betray one another and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. Now we know that God will bless the reading of his word. This morning we turn, we have been noticing in this gospel that there is an introduction and there is an epilogue at the end, and that in between we have noticed that there are five distinct books or booklets that Matthew is writing, and every one of them have to do with the general presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ as king. And do remember now that it's very important when we think of his kingship to think of Israel particularly. The late Mr. Feredi was once standing on a plat- sitting on a platform, as Mr. Allen is here behind me now, and a man was standing where I'm standing, and he was speaking, and he kept on saying, make Jesus king, make Jesus king. Now, Mr. Faraday was a great man for accuracy, and he was heard to be muttering behind the speaker. I hope I'm not going to hear any muttering today. He was muttering anyway, and this is what Mr. Faraday was saying. Jesus is Lord. Christ is king. Now, think about that carefully. It's very accurate. God has made that same Jesus for Lord and Christ. But Christ is the King, the Messiah. The word Christ is the anointed one, the sent one, the Messiah of Israel. We must keep that in mind. We have come into the benefits of his word from this understanding, but just keep that in our mind as we are turning to these passages this week. The presentation of the King, the anointed one, the Messiah of Israel is particularly the theme of the book and the theme of the booklets that, uh, are compiled together in this wonderful gospel. Now, we're not going to talk about those booklets today, except to say this. Our ministry on, uh, last yesterday, uh, looked at the first book, and tonight, God willing, we'll be looking at the second book and so on. But we've run right over the other books now for the Bible readings, and we've come to book five, And all our Bible readings will be dealing with book five, and only a part of it, not the narrative, but just the discourse. Now keep that in your mind now as we come to the chapter. The narrative section, because we just should try to fill in the bits very briefly, the narrative section of this book, of this little booklet, starts at chapter nineteen verse one and it goes through to the end of twenty three, the beginning of twenty four, verse twenty one of twenty four. So that's the narrative part. And the discourse is what we'll study this w- this week in the morning, Twenty four and twenty five, uh chapters twenty four and twenty five. Let's have a brief overview first then, just very brief, with only a statement about it, of the narrative part before we turn to our main study for the rest of the week. In chapters nineteen and twenty of the narrative, we have some practical problems in the life of the king, kingdom. Practical problems in the life of the kingdom. Now, that's all I'm going to say. They're very important, but it's not our subject this week to look at them. As we've said, we are being selective in the material that we are dealing with. In chapters twenty one and twenty two, there is an emphasis laid upon the relation of the king to the Jewish kingdom, the relationship of the king to the Jewish kingdom. At chapters twenty one and twenty two. And in chapter twenty three, now I want you to think about this one very carefully, because it's leading us now to our subject. When you turn to Matthew twenty three, we have what I have called today the repudiation of the kingdom by the Lord Jesus. That Jewish aspect of the kingdom. He repudiates it because they have turned their backs upon him and his ministry. And that's the major part of the first part of twenty three, one to thirty three. Twenty three verses one to thirty three, that we have what I have called the repudiation. But now look at the closing verses. This is the bit I want you to come to. It will be a springboard for us today, and I'm sure we'll refer to it a little at the beginning of the Bible reading. In verses thirty four to thirty nine of chapter twenty three, we have what I've called the temporary and partial renunciation of the kingdom. Temporary and partial renunciation of that Jewish kingdom. Now keep that in your mind, it's very important. In fact, I've got to say something more about that. Luke, if you will, please, at twenty three verse thirty eight. Maybe you should look earlier. Look at verse thirty three. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Very strong language of the Lord Jesus to those Jewish leaders who had led the way in rejecting him, leading them eventually to the cross at Calvary. Look at verse thirty four. I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye kill, ye shall kill and crucify. Some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city. Here's the reason for renunciation. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shared upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, and you slew him between the temple and the altar. You weren't worried where you did it. You see what he's saying? You disregarded your own holy places to perpetrate the most evil action. Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, stoneest them which are sent unto thee. How often listen to the pathos and the compassion of the heart of Christ for that nation. He came unto his own, and he loved them, but they received him not. And he's saying here, how often I would have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chil- chicken under her wings, and she would not. Behold, your house. Look at it, the house of Israel is left unto you desolate. Here's the renunciation of the Jewish kingdom of that day. Your house is left unto you desolate. For I say, look at verse thirty nine. You say, is this forever? Some people believe that God will never deal with Israel again. They teach it publicly, some people. But with all my heart, I do not believe that is true. Look what we read here. I say unto you, shall not see me henceforth till, till. You're looking about till. Ye shall say, blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the annunciation of the kingdom. And that ends the narrative. That's his discussion with them and so on. And he now goes out, look at verse one of chapter twenty four. we come to our chapter. He goes out, and he departs from the temple, and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. And he said, see not all these things. There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. He is predicting the fact that there'll not be one stone left upon the other in that very wonderful building that stood there in the days of the Lord Jesus. So he predicts the fall of the actual temple. Now, there's no temple there today, and I don't think there are any prizes for anyone who will tell us when it ended. AD seventy, Titus came, that, uh, great general of the Roman Empire, and he raised the temple. You, they say, they say that, uh, you know that when he did come, he made a specific command to his army, his armies, and he said, now look, there's one thing you must not do. Don't pull down the temple. You know, they were, they decided they would raise it with fire. They would burn it, and they burned it. Now, there was precious gold lining the temple, and that gold ran down in rivulets. In the Scottish Bible exhibition, they have this very easily and well depicted. Many of you will have seen the picture of it. And the gold runs down and ran into the very sand, and the, but some of it was left in deposits, and they say the soldiers in their greed, they pulled every stone apart, brought it all down to the ground, and looked for all the particles of, of gold, and the words of Christ were accurately fulfilled. Not one stone shall stand upon another. The Lord predicted it here in this bed. Now let's come now to the study of our chapter. I want us just to look at the discourse like this. We'll only deal with fourteen verses of it, but Mr. Allen will be taking us through another part tomorrow, I'm sure. We'll be steady, progressing steadily throughout this, uh, discourse in the week. In, uh, I want to suggest to you that in verse three they raise questions. Tell us when. You see that word when? And then if you look a little further down, what? When shall these things be? Now, if you want the detail, or a little of the detail, you must turn to the gospel by Luke. And you will see that Luke deals with this in a little more detail in chapter twenty one verses twenty to twenty four. He deals with that first question. When shall these things be? But look what we have next. And what shall be the sign of thy coming? What coming? Look at the last verse of twenty three. When ye shall see, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. They knew the coming had been mentioned, and so they said, what shall the sign be of thy coming and of the end, not of the world, but the end of the age? So keep that in your mind, there are those two questions. Now, the discourse deals with them, and we've got to read the whole of the two chapters, and we will be doing it over the days, of course, to get the answer to those questions. Now, there are three ways of viewing Matthew twenty four and twenty five. There are three— well, there are more than three, but there have been three major ways in which it has been viewed. One, there are those who have taught that everything in these chapters has already been fulfilled. Those people say that there will be no millennium in the future, that all of this has happened already. Then there is another way in which it's been said that this describes the present day in which we live. And all of these things that we find in these chapters find an answer in events that have occurred over the two thousand years that have taken place since the Lord Jesus was here. Now, the third view that I espouse, and I know Mr. Allen does as well, and I know many do, and we want to think, consider these things, is that this is the end of the Jewish age that has been referred to, and we have here evidences of what will take place in days which are yet to come. We live, let me just remind you of this now, and I don't want to be too lengthy, but it is the opening of the all the reading, so you'll pardon me just for a moment. We live in the day of a gap. Mr. Allen is not terribly fond of gaps in every part of the Bible. Neither am I, for that matter, but, um, but, uh, I think he'll agree with what I'm going to say now. We live in a dis- now do listen to this carefully. We live in a dispensational gap. God, the late Mr. Harry Bell used to illustrate it like this. He used to say, it's like the great train that was going through, and God has put it into the siding, and he's bringing another train right through at the moment. Israel is the train that has gone into the siding in this dispensational dealing, and the church is running through, but when the church has gone through, God will bring Israel onto the main line again. God is not dealing, now this is a massive subject. We have to turn to Romans nine and ten and eleven and many other passages, to Daniel chapter nine, and these many wonderful associated scriptures, and the many references to them in our Bible reading. But the point is this, that God is in our day no longer dealing with Israel. It's temporary, it's partial. We can see it even in the very statements of Roman- of Matthew twenty three. We could certainly find it in Romans chapter eleven. Blindness, in part, in part, has happened unto Israel until. These untills of the Bible are very important in these matters. I keep those things at the background as we're coming to our subject for study today. Now, I'll not spend much longer, but I want to say to you now that when we turn to what we are looking at today, twenty four and twenty five, chapters twenty four and twenty five, in overview, I want to put it to you like this. In verses one to thirty one of twenty, chapter twenty four, we have doctrine, teaching. He deals with it doctrinally, and he gives literal teaching about the events of the future. But from verse thirty two of chapter uh twenty four, just look at it for a moment. Now learn a parable. It becomes parabolic. And there are seven parables from verse thirty two right through to the end of twenty five. Now you've got it in the program. In the program, we've said today we're going to look at verses one to fourteen. and we're going to think, amongst other things, about the first half of Daniel seventeenth this week. When we come to our Bible reading tomorrow morning, Mr. Allen will be bringing us to the second half of that week and the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ in manifested glory. And on Wednesday, we begin the parables, and we look at the first four of them. And then on Thursday, uh, Mr. Allen will deal with parables five and six. And then in the will of God, we shall look on Friday morning at the last of those parables, the seventh parable. So it divides into doctrinal and parabolic. So now we come to the beginning of the doctrinal section and just the first fourteen verses. Now I want us to think about it very briefly, uh, uh, like this. This morning I've divided our consideration into three sections for the sake of order, as, uh, we were discussing the other day, and we know that we have a fairly free reign in not having too many verses to deal with, but it will not be helpful to be talking about verse fourteen at the beginning of the meeting. Are you listening now? We must start with the early verses. So we have, first of all, uh, verses one to three where we have the questions, and we give a little time to those early verses first. I'm going to sit down just now, and then we'll turn next to verses four to eight, and we'll see delineated for us events, some of the events that will unfold in that future day after the church is gone, and what God is going to do with Israel in the future day, and with her in the future day. When we look at those events, I think we will find a very interesting parallel with the opening of those sealed judgments in Revelation chapter six. Very interesting parallel in those verses between, particularly between verses, uh, four and nine. uh, or or eight, we see an interesting parallel. And then we look, in closing, at verses nine to fourteen, conditions which will exist up to the end. We see that this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached, and you can see in verse thirteen, he that shall endure unto the end shall be saved. Now, there are time marks. We're going to see, for instance, if you look at verse fifteen, which it's not our subject, but just to point out that a time mark. When ye shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet. Now, we know from Daniel chapter nine that's going to take place right in the middle of that seventieth week of Daniel's prophecy. Now, we're not talking about that today in detail, although it may be alluded to, but certainly not verse fifteen. We'll come to verse fifteen tomorrow morning. Mr. Allen will leave us it for that. But there's a timer, timer. Look back now with that in your mind at verse eight. These are the beginning. Now that word is literally the birth pangs of sorrow. Israel is going to travail. Israel is going to have days of great tribulation. But before the travail, there are birth pangs in natural birth. And so we have an interesting expression. These are the beginning, these are the birth pangs of souls. So we're looking at one to three, the questions, four to eight, the events which will unfold, and verses nine to fourteen, the conditions which will exist up to the end. And we look to the Lord. Now, you've already heard what Mr. uh, our brother Sam Matthews has said today about the order of things, but we do want you to feel free to come in, and first I'll ask Mr. Allen if he wants to add anything at the beginning in a general way before we commence, and he's here to help me as we look at these matters together. We're here to be laborers together. Mr. Allen, is there anything you want to sort of generally add at the beginning? It would be very helpful if you would. I just emphasize just what our brother has said about the movement from chapter twenty three into chapter twenty four. In chapter twenty three, the Lord has dealt and pronounced judgment upon the leaders of the nation. Now he's moving into that part where the judgment will be fully endured by the nation itself. And the key is, of course, that he has drawn attention. Your house is left unto you desolate. That's the house, as you stressed. It's not the temple. No. It's the house of Israel. That's right. Of chapter ten, to whom he was sent, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And thus, he now turns away from them because they have rejected his claim, and he has accepted that, and he moves into the judgment state. Thank you. You, just before we, just in connection with your point, would you agree then if the same principle is seen even in the very movement of Christ at the beginning of those parables we look at in thirteen? He left the house and he sat by the sea. Yes. It's all in that picture is being set of the gospel. You agree with that? I agree with that. Yes, thank you very much. Just more or less said what I was going to ask, like the difference between Matthew 13, he went out of the house. I noticed the previous chapter suggests a new relationship. Who is my father, and who's my brother, and so on. Why the temple here then? He- he's suggesting the house. Is it the religious site, as you made in your opening remarks? Is it the religious who was he speaking to? Well. When he said your house is left completely desolate. Yes, that's a good, thank you, Frank. Yes, I do, as you've said, you've also seen what we were suggesting, that when you go to Matthew thirteen, the previous verses, who am I, the relationships are, are set aside, natural relationships, the spiritual coming in, and he's left the house of Israel, going towards the sea, which is the Gentile world. When we come here, you've asked, why is it the temple? I take it it is the house of that is desolate. Mr. Allen has just underlined what we said earlier. It's the house of Israel, not the house of God as far as the temple is concerned. But I take it we do have reference to the temple because it was the core of the nation, and it was the core of the kingdom, and not one stone was to be left upon another to show to us that God was eradicating and setting that aside. Th- this is the problem in the Hebrew epistle. They were wanting to go back to Judaism. God has made an end of it in this period of partial and temporary setting aside. The, I think that again is emphasized because in chapter twenty one, when the Lord comes into Jerusalem, the cry is, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Here was the presentation of the king, and now, having rejected him, refused his claim, he says, you'll not see me henceforth until you take up that same cry in a day that's yet to come. Yet to come. And say, blessed is he. That's a different word from our brother was dealing with, uh, yesterday. Not Makarios. It's not the word Makarios, it's the other word, speak well of. Yes. Give him the highest place. It belongs to him. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. That will be when he comes at the close of the tribulation. And that's the day when he will go into the temple. Yes. There will be a temple erected then that he will go into, but at the moment everything's set aside. Now, who is the next question? By the way. Notice the three things that come consecutively. There is the desolation of the house. Yes. There is the departure of the king, and there is the destruction of the temple. Obviously, this is what provoked the question of verse three. But isn't there a tremendously practical lesson for us? Notice the way in which the disciples were preoccupied with the material. These buildings, but they were only buildings because the king had left. And there is the tremendous danger today of the absence of Christ and the preoccupation with the building. You see our brother's point, a very valuable point. First of all, he's distinguished again between the house and the temple and shown the three things that that's a very nice progression our brother's brought us. But he's also emphasized, you see, at the end, he's taking it out from their prophecy, that's what you're doing, and he's showing us the principle that, in fact, we gather to the Lord's name, and in the Lord's name we make great claims. But if the Lord is not there, the whole thing is empty. You know your point? Yes, it was very important. Thank you. Hello. Peter, um, I appreciate that the majority of the people that come to the tour are wise and very wise and knowledgeable, but some of us maybe are not quite up to that standard. Now, allusion has been made both on the card and in your introduction to Daniel's seventieth week. Just what you mean by that? Well, that's a very large subject to, uh, to to deal with, I do appreciate. But I unders- I accept the point that you've made. What our brother is asking us, just to very briefly and very as simply as we can elucidate, is that in Daniel's prophecy, in chapter nine there is the reference to seventy weeks that were determined upon the nation of Israel. Now, each week is a week of years, and seven sevens are forty nine, making four hundred and ninety years. And when we trace the story of Daniel chapter nine, very simply, without going into the details today, when we trace that story, we find that it is clear from the reading of the prophecy of Daniel and the comparison with Matthew twenty four and allied passages, that sixty nine of those weeks have now been fulfilled. The late Sir Robert Anderson wrote a very interesting book in which he traced, eh, by means of dating, eh, the actual day in which the Lord Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and that coincides with the end of the sixty ninth week. Now the point is, without us going into that today, there is another week yet to take place. We live in this period of the gap, remember. The seventieth week has yet to be fulfilled. It's not our direct subject to look at the week. Um, if we turn to the book of Revelation, I think we would again see, and we will begin to see soon, the parallel between once the church is safe home in heaven in Revelation four and five. in chapter six, the seals are opened, and we can see a parallel between the ministry of chapter six and the ministry that we have in this chapter, bringing in the events of that seventeenth week. Is that silly? Just in a simple way now. Do you want to add to that? If I could add just to, to, to link up what our brother Philip, uh, has brought before us with what's gone before. If you follow Sir Robert Anderson's dates, you come to the tenth of Nissan, AD thirty two, which is represented in our Bible by Matthew twenty one. That day, that Lord's Day mo- Sunday morning that Christ moved up to Jerusalem, and the crowd said, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Now, after what Daniel heard of the sixty ninth week, after the threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off. So that, uh, we- sixty ninth week closed. After that, there came the cross, Messiah cut off, and the temple destroyed, and that was in eighty seven. That still leaves one week for the completion of God's purposes with Israel. Now, Daniel will give you the beginning of the week, the crisis in the week, and the close of the week. We are dealing here particularly with the commencement of the week, and then at verse fourteen we've come to the crisis in the middle of the week. So these passages are moving through Daniel's seventieth week, the seven-year tribulation period that closes the program of God with the presentation of Christ when he comes in glory. Now that's very helpful. You see, Daniel tells us that the day will come when the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed. You see, that's, that's the, that's the language of Daniel chapter nine. We have been reading today, not one stone upon another. There's the link that Mr. Allen is alluding to. Brother Samuel James. Uh, I take it that in view of what you've both been saying, that you use, uh, the first fourteen verses here as taking place mainly after the rapture. Yeah. And not the rapture as taking place some way down the chapter. No. Uh, because, you know, you are aware that there are people who would, uh, view much of this as requiring fulfillment prior to AD seventy, which I don't think so. No. And if you want a partial fulfillment, you probably could, uh, go to Luke's gospel to get it because it says there is the days come when. Right. But we don't get that here, and we get it very here, which is out of emphasis. Thank you. That's very helpful. Now, in connection with what Brother Samuel has said, may I ask you, Tim? Yes. Could you give your mind on, or help us, on the relationship between this, these fourteen verses and Luke chapter twenty? There seems to be, uh, a very close link, and yet there's a difference. Uh, and some people find difficulty as they, they try to compare this passage with Luke's passage. Have you a thought on that? Well, which, which part of Luke's passage are you alluding? Well, if you, if you look at Luke twenty one— I'm sorry, I'm sorry, uh, to take you No, no, it's quite all right. Uh, away here. Uh, yeah, twenty, twenty one. Twenty one. yes. Uh, twenty one, if you go right to verse five, some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts. Well, that's in a different situation. It is. A different situ- you agree? Definitely, yes. This is starting with the treasurer. Yes. And the Lord here, the content of this passage is put in at that point with a different situation. It said. That moves up to the actual destruction of the temple in AD seventy. Later on in Luke twenty one, he said. Right down to to verse twenty, friends, you shall see Jerusalem compassed with army. Now, do you see, can I just interrupt you to say, can you see Mr. Allen is pointing out, just we're not studying Luke twenty one now, so we must be careful, but he is pointing out that in that chapter, when they raise that matter about the adornment, he's simply saying it's going to go anyway there, but that's not part of the dispensational description. The Holy Spirit has put it in there, uh, through Luke, uh, for a particular purpose. That's right. To warn the disciples of immediate things that would happen after he had gone immediately. Quite so. But Matthew's setting is different. It is. This is totally in the future after the rapture has taken place. I'm quite convinced of that, and that's why I thought, and others have done the same and underlined it, to emphasize that the house is left desolate, that we have the evidences of a rejection. That's why I used the term renunciation, but then qualified it by those words temporary and partial, because we've got the evidence of that even in twenty one, until you say, you see him coming. And so you can see that it's been set aside. So we're not talking about the present day, eh, we're talking about that future day when God is going to begin to deal with the nation. All right, thank you for that now. Would you agree that Jesus went out is a phrase of dispensational significance? Yes. Bearing in mind the fact that the church can look at every scripture, but itself is not in all the scriptures. Quite so. We must understand that, as we've often said, all the word of God is for us, but it's not all about us. And yes, I see, I do see there is a significance in the fact that he went out, just as we've mentioned at the beginning of Matthew thirty. Thank you, John. Would you suggest there is a parenthesis between the first question, when, and the other two, what? Yes. Is it Yes. that the first question is dealt with in the prediction in relation to the temple? Yes. The other questions are in the future. It's the second coming of Christ, and for that reason, you don't have the church in these verses. Neither do you have the rapture. Quite so. I, I think that's right, and I think that, uh, that, that is, will come out clearly as we continue. This is very much Jewish ministry. Now, we may have a slight difference later on, uh, but we'll leave that for the time when it comes. But I think you'll agree with those statements. Oh, yes. In this part of the chapter. Would, may I come in here Yes. with Willie's question and ask, ask you, uh, how many questions are there here? There are, there, in a sense, there are three questions. You not agree the last two are one? But they are all that, that's what I was going to say. It's a sort of joint question in a sense, but it's two parts to it. All right. Yes, yes. That's what I mean when I say it's got two parts. The second question has two parts. Tell us when shall these things be? Well, what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age? Now, in a sense, it is a third question. I can understand the point that you're making. Because there's a distance between the two. It's just one article covering the two things as if they were both Yes. the same event. Yes. The coming and the end of the, the completion of the age. Yes, but you don't believe that they're exactly the same. Uh, I think they're synonymous in, in, in the fact that his coming completes the age, brings the, the purpose of God, the, the, the completion of the age, not the word is here, as you, as you know, it's not just end, it's bringing to completion the whole program, and that will be in the person of Christ. We will come back. Maybe where the difficulty lies is, not with yourself, I don't mean this when I say it like this, but it's the fact, no, but is the fact that we don't always appreciate the breadth of the word coming. I was just going to come. You see, this is the word parousia, which really indicates the coming, the arrival, and the stay. You see, they, when the queen comes, when some visitor comes to see the Queen on a state visit, usually she does not go herself to Heathrow, but she sends some members of the royal family, and they meet at the aeroplane. They bring that person in, you know, either in cars or whatever form of transport they take, and then she receives them in Buckingham Palace. They stay for three days, usually about three or five days for a state visit. Now, the word, Greek word parousia would have been used to describe the whole thing, the coming, the arrival when they were met at the airport, the coming into Buckingham Palace, and the stay. And so there are parts to it, but it's all the one word. Isn't that the one? In fact, the good translation would be present, isn't it? Yes. The fact that he's now present. Yes. He's there. Yes, Paul uses that in Philippians, as you know, where he says, not as in my presence only, but also in my absence. Presence is parousia, absence is apousia, and as you say, it's the presence. All right, now, Brian. The setting in a way, and the representation of the disciples, because the pronoun is used quite often to, uh, these verses. Also in my mind is this, though he is talking to them, he's not talking about them. Yeah. Because they will not be alive when these things happen. Of course. They are representatives Yes. of future remnants. Yes. And they were a remnant then in the, in the setting of the chapter. That's a very important point, I know, that Greenhouse made, that they will themselves not personally be present, but they're being spoken to representatively of the nation. This phrase completion of the age, Jim, would you like to say a word on that, the context? Well, perhaps you would. You got something to tell us on it? No, it's just to draw attention to the fact that it's not, as in our authorized, the world. No. It's not the end of the world. It's, it's the completion of the age. Now, what age is it? This, this age that runs right on to the Lord's feet, stands on the Mount of Olives. That's right. Is that correct? That's right. That's that, that period that will be consummated with him in his manifested glory. Yes. And I suggest it's not the age of grace. No. Alone. No. It's right until his advent and his appearing. That's the point that's just been made. I agree with you that it's when he stands in manifested glory, eh, on the Mount of Olives. Yes. Now, eh, I think that we should move out from verses one to three. Oh, Frank, I'm sorry. Just to prove it's Jewish and current, the Jews require a sign. What shall be the sign of the end of the age? Good. And also, without going into Mr. Oz, it's the Sabbath, you know, pray that your flight be not in the summer, in the winter. So this is where to end. Something we we think it's it's the end of the world, it's the end of the age, isn't it? And notice it's progressive. Verse six, he goes on again when he speaks about the wars, he says, this is not the end. That's right. And then in verse, uh, number thirteen, they have endured to the end, which would be probably the end towards the millen- towards the beginning of the millennium. And then finally, in verse fourteen, he speaks about the end to come. Nice. Thank you, brother Frank. That's important. We must, of course, always remember that, uh, um, the context must always qualify the way that we view any word. Just because a word repeats from time to time within a context does not mean that it always means refers to the same thing. You've got to look at it in the context of the verse then. But as you are rightly saying, we are looking on to the end of the age. If that's the general thing that's been stated in the question, and that is what the Lord is looking at. One other, and then we're going to move on. Who? Just a couple of general points, really, in, uh, what has been touched on. In, in verse one. the disciples are drawing the Lord's attention to the temple. Um, they seem to be taken up rather than outward things or material things, and then down in verse it's uh, it's more, you might call, spiritual things. It may well be, I don't know whether you think that, uh, Mark thirteen links with this or with Luke, but in Mark thirteen, it's Peter, uh, James, John, and Andrew. In other words, it's not all the disciples. But the point I'm making is, whether I'm interested in material things or spiritual things, I can illustrate it. When I go home to Killock every year, someone will say to me, how did it go at Kilrot? And they say, what were the numbers like? And what was the weather like? And no one ever yet has said to me, what did you do at Underground Tunnel? They they they seem to want to know the outward things and not the inward. Let's get our minds on the things that really matter. And the second point is that the that being interested in prophetic matters is a a profitable exercise. There are some that think all these things, they're not going to happen while we're here, so why bother about them? But it really is profitable to be concerned with prophetic matters. The proof about our brother's last point is found in Second Thessalonians chapter two, where, eh, because, you know, people say, should we be teaching young believers prophetic truth, and should we be looking at issue, aren't there matters of church truth and so on? Well, these are very important now. We need to be established in the truth of the assembly and so on, don't misunderstand me. But Paul wrote to an assembly that was very young. There he, they had not, it was not a long time after he left Thessalonica that he writes to them, and they were young believers. And when he writes chapter two of the second epistle, he says, now the man of sin, you'll go into the temple and you say so and all these. And then he says this, you remember that when I was with you, I told you these things. So he taught young believers prophetic truth. Prophetic truth is not just to educate the mind, but it's to gird our loins and enable us to live for the glory of God. We must not get obsessed and become specialists, you know, the great danger of going specialist in one thing. We must be generalists in the understanding of the word of God. But having said that, we do need to understand these matters. Another point before we're leaving this section, now we are leaving it, we're coming now to verse four. But another point, our brother Frank did make something that I wanted to say earlier, forgot to say, about the word sign. We should remember that Israel is God's sign people. The Jew required the sign. That's the secret of the charismatic problem, if you'll only think about it carefully. It, it, the Jew requires a sign, and the disciples are using that very language here, as, as you rightly pointed out. Signs belong to Israel. We must keep that in mind. Now we're moving, please, into the next section, which is verses four to eight, and we're thinking now of some of those events which will unfold. Now look at verse four: um and Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ. Now, I compact- we cannot go running forward and back to Revelation chapter six, but Mr. Allen will be our guide here. It's all very fresh in his mind. He spent a lot of time poring over these chapters. I know he did because, uh, he wrote that very helpful book on it, and, uh, so he'll be our guide if we want to have a sort of a vague memoir on it. But that's the white horse. If you look at the white horse of the first seal that was opened, I'm not asking you to look at it now, but just keep it in your mind, in Revelation chapter six, You'll be able to see that there are false Christs coming in in verse five, I am Christ that shall deceive many. I just want to remind you that the Lord Jesus, now listen to this, the Lord Jesus said, I have come in my Father's name, and ye received me not. Another will come in his own name, and him ye will receive. This is not the Christ. This has to do with both the spirit of and the literal future Antichrist. Look at, um, not only verse- verses four and five, when we look at the white horse of Revelation six in Seal one, but Seal number two had the red horse, and that has to do with war and rumors of war, which we find in just verses six and seven here. You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. And then if you look at, um, verse seven again, you will see that there is allusion to famine. That's the black horse on the seal number three. And then if you look at verses six and seven here, you'll see allusion more than once to death. And that's the pale horse of the fourth seal of Revelation chapter six. Look at, uh, verses nine, uh, through to twenty eight of this chapter. You'll see that there's reference to what we have on the seal five, the souls that were under the altar. And you, you see also in verse twenty nine of this chapter the astronomical disturbances that will be seen and are depicted in seal number six. So you can see that there is a correlation between the seals. Do you want to add anything to that in the introduction? I think that confirms what we have sought to present this morning. It confirms that this is the movement through Daniel's seventieth week, the beginning of the seven-year tribulation period. If you follow the sequence of events in Revelation, the church is gone at the close of chapter three. Chapter four and chapter five introduce you to the scene in heaven where the seventh-sealed book is taken, uh, by the one worthy to take it from the hand of the throne sitter. And clearly, the opening of those scenes begin the tribulation period, which of course on earth corresponds to the moment when the man from the west and the leader from Israel sign the seven-year treaty that marks out the seven-year tribulation. So we are thus paralleling the events that are seen from the revelation point of view, the four horsemen in the events of these four verses from four to eight. You have set out the same sequence of events from two different aspects, but presenting the same thing. Yes. Thus, you can see that this is moving through the tribulation period, and I have written over that in my mind, these four verses, the pressures in society, deception, war, famine, death. Those are the things that will mark out this period, the signs that will indicate that you're moving up to the crisis point. Now, the Lord will say here, with regard to these, the end is not yet, and we know that, uh, that that's just the beginning of the, the throes, the, the travial teens. That we mentioned. That we mentioned. Yeah. And you do agree that you've got to get to verse fifteen till you, before you get to the middle of the week. That is why, h- here, so that is why we have said that in broad terms, these fourteen verses are describing the first three and a half years Yeah. of the seven, uh, the seven years of Daniel seventh year. A very practical lesson for us here. What the Lord stated in the closing verse of the previous chapter provoked within them inquiry. But then you'll notice they have a private interrogation of the Lord. He had indicated the coming. They wanted to know, and they went to the source of information. All the revelation we have comes from him. But then you'll notice the pertinence of the questions. It was exactly what they wanted to know in relation to his coming manifestation and the events that would lead up to it. And the first thing that he warns them about is deception. Isn't there a tremendous danger today of being deceived? Yes. Because we don't go to the source of revelation. Excellent. You see what our brother's done? He's brought practical truth out of prophecy. Now that's very important, and he did it in his first remark. You're very helpful today, Willie, but you always are, but that's very good because you can see now how that is showing to us that this chapter is bringing to us men who want to know the truth about the future. They go, first of all, to the right source. That's what he said. They go to the Lord himself, and it's very important for us to get things in the right order and to go to the right source when we need information. So often we turn even to the books of men, which can be very helpful, but we must come to the word of God. Yeah, that's right. Don't you tell me you never read a book now. Right, William. That's the kingdom of the books. I know that. It's, uh, nice to see the parallels with the seven seals and Newbury's margin and the parallel passage in Mark thirteen actually sets it out, uh, in print and gives you the parallels there. But just to make a general point in relation to the destruction of the temple here, uh, some brethren who would not agree with, uh, us here, uh, I remember once gave me a bit of grief over this, and they insinuated that, uh, unless you see, uh, this is being partly fulfilled in our day, then we're, uh, accusing the Lord of dodging the question about the when of AD AD completely. And I was forced to say to them, uh, and you may not agree with it, but it was what occurred to me at the time, that, uh, verse two is not in any way exhausted by what happened in AD seventy. Antichrist temple is equally a non-recognized temple spiritually and will likewise be storied. Of course it will. But primarily, of course, you would agree, it is primarily the temple that is out there then. And I think that the fact, I think to distinguish, you see, I think that I, I, I think you agree what I said about Luke twenty one giving the detail of the, of the temple. And I think there's a significance in that, because we know that Luke wrote for the Greek mind, and Mark wrote for the Latin mind. John's a gospel for the world, the world figures right out his gospel, but Matthew is for the Jewish man. So you can see how in- interestingly, the expansion of truth in Luke has to do with the Gentile approach to things, and he's looking at the material things and looking at the temple in that sense. We must see the devil behind this too, James, don't we? He's called the deceiver. And I noticed in verse eleven, we haven't only a false Christ in verse five, but we have the false. And then in Jim's portion tomorrow, down to verse number twenty four, it speaks about the false Christ and the false prophet, which again we'll see in chapter thirteen of Revelation seventeen and so on. Yes. I'm thinking of the verse, that old serpent, the devil that deceiveth the whole world. He spoke about doctrine in the first, is it thirty one verses? Yeah. This, this here is an angel of light. Yeah. Possibly further on in the persecution, it's the roaring lion. I'm, I'm quoting verse verse ten or rather. you know, when they Yes. persecuted. I think what you said is right now, you know, the, the, the, the, the, as you know, there are two sorts of leaven in the scripture, and we have the leaven of Herod, and we have the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now, if you think about the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, it was basically doctrinal, but the leaven of Herod was moral. Now, when you come to First Corinthians five, a little leaven, leaven of the lump, that's moral. When you come to Galatians three, a little leaven, leaven of the lump, it's doctrinal. And we n- we have our lives have to be clean both morally and doctrinally, so that, as our brother Willie introduced this section for us in this sense in the discussion, by pointing out, as you're underlining, take heed that no man deceive you, and the purity of doctrine to make clear what I do believe, because he's already done. We've got to be very careful that people are clean morally and doctrinally. This, some of these things are fundamental. I'm not talking about them publicly, but the point is we've got to be very careful about doctrine. Let no man deceive you, and the Lord is saying, keep to the purity of divine truth and drink at the fountainhead. The trouble is that sometimes it's not taught publicly on the platform, but it is insidiously taught in the house. And very often the social relationships become a corruption of doctrine. Yes. Notice as well, is there at all a future desecration and destruction of the temple? Do we have that during the seventieth week? I think it was literally fulfilled in AD seventy. The house then will become the center of attraction. See, there's no going to be the desecration other than what you have in verse fifteen, but there's no going to be the destruction of the temple. There's not only here. You're talking about the Antichrist temple. Eh? You're talking now about Antichrist. Yes. There is here first the possibility of deception, but notice as well the presumptuous claims of those that come. They're Christ, and they don't have what we've been looking at in the ministry in the beginning of the chapter. Thank you. I just want to say one word of explanation, because it's cropping up a bit in the discussion, and there's a lot of young believers here, that when some are talking now, and you may be just getting a bit confused in your mind about which temple are we talking about, eh, there was, there are really five temples alluded to in the, in the Bible. There was Solomon's temple that he built, you remember that? And then after that, eh, it was very badly burned, you remember, in the days of the, uh, of the captivity. Nebuchadnezzar came, he burned everything and so on. All the building didn't fall, but it was burned completely, and it was refurbished in the days of Zerubbabel. So the Zerubbabel temple, that's at the end of the Old Testament when they returned after the captivity. There were other things in that four hundred year period where there was a need for renovation, and Herod re-energized and rebuilt parts of the temple. So there's Herod. We allude to Solomon's temple, Zerubbabel's temple, Herod's temple. That was the days of the new. We know that Titus came in and he raised it to the ground, and the next temple there will be is the one that's alluded to, both in measure here and in Second Thessalonians two. he'll go into the temple of God, showing himself that he is God, and it's called the temple of God, even though it's anti-God rec- takes man up on profession, and it's recognized to be what it is purporting to be. So there is the Antichrist temple of the. That's what Willie just mentioned. That's what Samuel James just mentioned a few moments ago. But after that, of course, there will be, I take it, destruction of it eventually, but of course there will be the millennial temple we read about in Ezekiel's prophecy. Now, I think we've got to come to what our brothers brought us to. Many shall come in my name, saying I am Christ, and shall deceive many. Mr. Allen, how do you see this matter of many shall come saying I am Christ and paralleling it with what we have in Revelation chapter six, which I take it becomes more singular than plural? Can you help us with that? Just to clarify the position at this point, I think would be necessary. The church is gone, but there are believers, they are saints on earth at that, at this time. After the church is gone, there'll be the sealing of the one hundred and forty— saving and sealing and sending of the one hundred and forty four thousand. The gospel will be preached, many will be saved. Israel will be back in the purposes of God as a nation. That's why the Lord says, take heed, let no man deceive you, because it's at that very time, just focus on that period, that deception will come to the fore. The man on the white horse. Now, Christ comes on a white horse in chapter nineteen, but here is one who goes before him, obviously claiming to be a Christ. Now, this deception, as our brother has asked me to clarify, will be in two parts. There will be a deceiver from the west, and there will be a deceiver in the nation. So that deception will be to the fore. And when these two great deceivers sit down and sign the covenant of peace, then it indicates you have actually come into the seventieth week. The seven-year tribulation has begun. That's why deception comes first. The man in the nation is the beast out of the sea. That's the man that is, in fact, the Antichrist, the replacement Christ. They refused the true Christ, so that one becomes the replacement Christ, and deception is manifest in us. Is that what you- Yes, that's what I had in mind. That was very helpful. All right. You not happy with that, Bill? Sorry, um. Yes, it did. Sorry, I didn't mean that. Um, no, I was curious, Two Thessalonians two, You see, the scripture says there that for those who receive not the love of the truth, God will send down the strong delusion, so that they shall believe the lie. So is it possible that verse four, take heed that no man deceive you, is a general portion, as in fact we have in in verse three of 2 Thessalonians 2 again. That's right. Let no man deceive you. But then the deceit itself, the believing of the lie, is a divine judicial act. It is. They will not be able to help it, for God shall send strong delusion. God shall send. Just as you have the blindness of Israel in the present day, that's a judicial act from God. Yes. But, but that is the point I come in. That's upon a certain class of people. Exactly, yes. That is then going to be the point. Would you please elaborate on who that class of people is? Because it seems it's a clash, but there obviously is no clash. No, because there are. Isn't it the class of people that have heard the gospel in this dispensation? Yes. And refused the Christ presented by the power of the spirit? Yeah. So with respect, that was my point, because you, you made reference to the fact that there will be in that day those who are saved. Oh yes. And the question then arises, is there a second chance for people who refuse the gospel in this age? And I would suggest to that we must state today a category. Absolutely. Those that know not God in flaming fire and o- obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think the scripture is clear, isn't it? Yes, and it's good to distinguish those. So those who hear the gospel today are that category in two Thessalonians two upon whom God sends judicially a strong delusion so that they believe the lie. They can't help it. No. And this is, of course, the result of the cry in the judgment hall, away with it. That's right. Thank you. Thank you. Is this similar to what the Lord said? He says, I have come in my Father's name, and they will not hear. Another shall come in his own name, and him they will hear. Yeah. I take it that that is the deception of the lie that they believe. That's right. Yes, I believe that's right. We've got to move on a bit now. Our time is getting short. I'm conscious of thank you. You mentioned Harry Bell earlier. Those of a certain age remember Bell's Law. Now, I'm not quite sure what you call going to tomorrow's reading today, but the point I'm going to make, there are evidently two different words for end that are used. Verse three is several things coinciding with a climate. But verse six. it's the final completion of the end time, as in verse thirteen. Now, bearing that in mind, how would you apply those that look at these verses, wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, that's a sign of the times. We have that so often. Oh, that's all you can expect. Things get worse and worse, sign of the times, and you're left with the impression, people that they're not quite sure what a sign is, and they're even less sure what the times are. Would you like to comment on looking at history in the light of prophecy? Thank you. I'll try. I think the point is there is that, I think here the point is that, uh, what we are looking at, because we've seen it defined doctrinally, that the, that the house is left desolate, that we've seen these time marks we don't need to go through again now, which shows clearly that we have now moved into that first part of the seventieth week, that part of the first part of the, of the se- of the seven-year period, i.e. the first part of the week. But there is a general deterioration. We'll discover that when we come to Matthew chapter thirteen and the story of the parables, where there is a general deterioration. So we can see out in the world evidences of that sort of thing, but we must be very careful that we don't try in the present day to see the predictions of scripture that are confined within the part that we've seen contextually. Would you agree with that? There are repetitions in history, and have been repetitions Yeah. in history. You could pick out a period in history and say, look, deception, war, famine, earthquakes, there they all are. That's it, that that's true of history in general, and of this age in particular, of the of the ages in particular. Yes. But this is a special, uh, point in time Yeah. that in which these will come to their fullness. In fact, the first, the first judgments of the tribulation period, people will likely argue and say these are only confidential. Sure, we have had these all the years. Exactly. There's nothing special about it. Right. But there is something special. But the unregenerate mind will see it in the way that you've just described. They'll explain them away. Now we're going to move on. So. I'm just saying there that false Christ, and for the young people, I think if we get the Lord Jesus Christ in his right position and place, other things fall into place. Because if we think of the first verse in the book of the Revelation, he rides a white horse, and there's men today ride a white horse, but they're not victorious like the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah. There's men today, as our brother Alan said in his book, have votes, but they have no power. Christ has power, and there's men today try to wear crowns, but there's only one person who will wear the diamond. Very nice. That's very nice. That's very nice. The use of the term ye in this passage, do you take it that that refers specifically to the, uh, disciples, who are very limited in number, probably only four if you go to Mark's gospel, as being representative of a remnant Yes. a community rather than of Christians in this age? Yes, I think that's the point that our brother Greenhow is raising, that that really these men would not be alive at that time, but they are spoken of representatively as of the relevant of that day. In that context, for example, is not something that is relevant to us. No, exactly, exactly. But that will come into its own again, particularly in Jewish days, you see. Prophets have to do with the nation of Israel in particular. You can see that now. I'm bringing you through now, if you will, please. Uh, notice verse 6, ye shall hear of wars, be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. And I've drawn your attention to some of those parallels, eh, to those horses. Now, we can't look at them in detail, but I think we picked out the principle of them. Are we happy with that? Oh yeah, sure. Right. Now, keeping that in mind, look at verse eight. All these are the beginning of sorrows. You happy what I said about the birth pangs, Mr. Adam? Oh, that's exactly the way. Yes. It goes back to Isaiah's prophecy, chapter thirteen. Yes, it does indeed. That's right. Now, so let us come now, please, to verses nine to fourteen, our closing section. And, uh, we, we realize that these are not familiar verses to many, and we're trying to bear that in mind for all the believers who are here, but to try and get the flavor and the broad points that are made here to help us to see that we're looking at a period that is yet to come, and we will ourselves not be present. The late Mr. Harry Bell used to say, I remember hearing him say one day, what is better than presence of mind when there's a great big railway accident? Absence of body. And we'll have absence of body in that day. We won't need to have presence of mind. That's, we will not be there. But nevertheless, this is given for our education, and there will be a day coming. Now do remember this, there'll be a day coming when there, that remnant will read the Bible and read these chapters and appreciate truth in reality that is happening to them. You believe that, don't you? So let us come now to verses nine through to fourteen, conditions up to the end. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And you can see the principle of persecution and affliction. Antisemitism. That's what we're looking at, really. Antisemitism, perhaps its greatest evidences will be seen in the future day, both in this first part of the week and in the second part of the week, depends how you view Revelation chapter eleven, but we won't go into that at the, at the moment. But the point is that there is evidence of anti-Semitism. Then shall many be offended, then that word offended is stumbled, tripped up. Many shall be stumbled and shall betray one another and shall hate one another, false prophets, and the iniquity will abound and the love of many wax cold. Now we're looking at these. The pressures in society, uh, as the troubles mount up through what we have mentioned already, the great deceivers moving to the front, the, their, their blasphemy, blasphemous philosophies reducing the belligerent policies, some will accept and some will reject, and there'll be a, a, a general, uh, feeling of war, rumor of war deepening as the time goes on. There'll be resulting light of prosperity in that is lost, uh, of the good times. Things will change, the famines come, and so on, and death will be manifest, and there will be pressure put on believers. And I judge here the remnant that our brother Samuel has mentioned is not only the remnant of the nation, but it's the rem- the believing remnant of the nation. Yes. Who are believing in Christ. And as these two men sign the treaty and the pressures build up in society, the next, very next thing is persecution of the saints. We can't have some believing in a real coming Christ. We can't accept that, and they turn the pressure on them. And according to the, under the altar, the souls of them that die for their testimony to Christ are seen here in this picture. Isn't it likely that there'll be some of the executions in those days? And... You see, when, when you come to Revelation chapter six and you have that summary statement in the verse that sums up, uh, how death manifests itself, uh, at that particular time. It says, power was given unto them, I take it over the, for the four horsemen, over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, that's the second one, and with hunger, that's the third one, with death, and with the beast. Now, I'm not sure if my brother's going to agree with this, but I think these wild beasts are the two beasts of Revelation thirteen. It's not the wild beasts of earth. It's the wild beasts that Satan produces in the two men that put pressure upon every believer in fact. Would you agree with that? I'm not too sure that I would, but we'll leave another side. We're in Matthew twenty four. I'll work on him. He's tried it before. We've o- we've often disagreed, but we're very agreeable. Right, yes. I was glad that you mentioned the idea of the birth pangs. Yes. The beginnings of sorrow. The thing that we have in the following verses is the child that was born because of those birth pangs of sorrow. You have the persecution that is expected, and you have the partition, the teaching, pernicious teaching that they gave, and you have the results of it in the denial of those who are genuine believers in Christ, and they're dead because of their faithfulness. I was wondering when we were going to get some alliteration from you, Willie, so you've kept up your record. That's very good. Yes. This will move into the time of Jacob's trouble, won't it? It will. We'll agree, I think, that the last half of the wo- of the book is actually the time of Jacob's trouble. Yes. But this is the beginning of the, the labor pains, as it were, to use the picture that's inherent in the statement, the labor pains for the birth of the child are here beginning, while the actual period of labor, the, the, the actio travio. Travio will be in the second half of the week. Have you got that point? You see, remember we said, and I just say that to elucidate it as clearly as we can, that when we come to verse fifteen, that's where we have, Mr. Allen won't mind me just mentioning this, he'll be dealing with it in detail. When we come to verse fifteen, we have the middle of the week. Now we know that, if you have the time before tomorrow's reading, go back to Daniel nine, and you'll find there's a reference here to that desolation that Daniel, that Ma- uh, Matthew is speaking about, and we know that's in the middle of the week. Three and a half years, three and a half years. Now it's the second part of the week that is the Great Tribulation. I won't say anymore, but you don't mind me just saying these points, and because you brought it in. Yes, that's right. And you see that, you can see that the Great Tribulation, that's the third period of Jacob's trouble. Jacob's trouble is the three and a half years. Uh, it's going to come upon the whole world, but it's Jacob's trouble because Jacob had two names, you remember, and this is the judgment upon the Jacob nature that said away with him, and those days of fierce tribulation will be in that second bit. Now that's what Mr. Allen is drawing our attention to. Here we have the beginning, the birth pangs of all those sorrows that are spoken of in verse eight and are continuing through to verse fifteen. and we don't go, it's really when we get to fifteen we're launched into the second half of the week. Would you agree with that? Exactly, yes. Excuse me interrupting. Does that mean, brother, that we are not in the middle of the week in verse nine? No, I don't think we're in the middle of the week in ver- in verse 9. I think what he's saying is, as you look, remember we've read these things here, which we've seen in the first half of the week. You agree with that in the pre- preceding verse? And is verse 8 a summary of those? I think so. These are the beginning, the birth pangs of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up during this birth pang periods, period. I think it is still carrying on to verse, through to verse fourteen as being part of that first half of the week. So when it says in verse fifteen, when ye therefore Shall see the abomination of desolation. We've got a time mark. Yes, but Sorry, did I? Well, my suggestion is that perhaps there's a time mark in verse nine, then, then, and then verse fifteen, when ye therefore. I'm, I'm, I'm not proposing anything counter to what you've said. I'm asking you to show me where I'm incorrect in thinking that maybe verse nine is the middle of the week. Yes, I, I, I, I'll tell you why I think that what I've said is right. That then is the, is, is still speaking about the beginning of sorrows period, the birth pang period, and the birth pang period, I take it, is the whole of the first three and a half years. So we are expecting to see the Jews killed and persecuted and tormented in that first half. Oh, I think there's going to be that in the first half of the week. I think we'll see it far more concentrated when we come to the second half of the week, but we'll still see it in the first half. The idea of dwelling in peace and safety and believing that, you know, the, uh, the man of sin has brought them everything that they have been looking for. That's an incorrect view of it. If there is anti-Semitism and persecution of the Jews as a hallmark of the first half of the week, why then is the second half the time of Jacob's trouble? Uh, I'm sorry, you, I know you're, you're Go on, no, you come in if you want. My answer to that is a, a, a very good question, Brother Philip, it says that here we're dealing with believers, not just with the nation itself. The nation itself, uh, the, the, uh, part of it will accept the claims of these men, and they will enjoy the feats and so on. But there will be true believers who will not, under any circumstances, accept that, and they will be the target, and not the nation particularly, but the believers in the nation will be the target. Yeah. of the enmity of these men. And this, I think, is confirmed by seal number six— seal number five, the souls under the altar. It was said unto them that they should rest yet a little season. I take that to be the three and a half years to complete it, a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were, should be. So there's two companies. I was going to say there's two activities going on. Two activities. You'd be happy with that. Yes. What then is the end of verse thirteen. Of verse? seven is it the end of the half years or the end of the 7 years? Well, I, I think I, I have not seen the, to the end as being the end of the age there, but it's for the individual's experience, the one who will endure to the end will be saved. For some, they will go by way of death. They'll be, they'll be slain at different points within that period. That's why I was saying earlier that I don't think the word end always has to be interpreted in the same way throughout the passage. We've got to see it in the, in its verse context as well as in the general context, but you may have a different view on that. Well, I do take the end here to be the same, the, the end of the tribulation period. I take verse thirteen to be the same as verse fourteen, uh, where you, verse thirteen, he shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved, the go- his gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, then shall the end come. Now, that's the end, I judge, of the tribulation period. It's the point where Christ actually comes to earth. So that's how I see the, the end. But else in thirteen fourteen and 3 is three and a half years time. It takes you right to the end. Yeah. My point is, and I accept I can see the point that you're expressing. My point is that there'll be many who will die in that first three and a half years. So they can't adhere to the end of the period physically, they won't be alive. Do you follow my point? There'll be an end for them, but the man who endures and is faithful to the time when he goes, he'll be saved. But isn't he saying in verse thirteen, the one that goes right through the tribulation will be physically saved and physically go into the kingdom? Well, i- i- if, if your interpretation is Yeah. Just to say, say that, uh, persecution against believers and against Jews can certainly coexist with unparalleled prosperity and economic success. Look at the Spanish Empire for at least two hundred years in its duration. Uh, and, uh, at all costs, I don't want to miss, uh, getting to the gospel of the kingdom, even if it means skipping a verse to get there. Right. Yes, thank you. We'll come back to that then. Well, maybe share the gospel of the kingdom. Our brothers asked, actually asked him that his question. Um, and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations. Uh, your question is, what is the gospel of the Well, go on, do it for us to see you making your suggestion. Um, well, the, the, uh, uh, seventy were commissioned to go and preach the gospel of the kingdom. Yes. And it was limited, uh, in scope to the nation mainly. It was. And here we have the gospel of the kingdom being taken up again after the dispensation of the gospel of the grace of God as Paul preaching it, and this time it's global. Yes. We must remember that the, that the reception of the message is, the reality of that reception is demonstrated by the fact that they will endure to the end. It's not that men are being saved by works, but it's the fact that they, what they have received is proved to be real in the fact that they stand in the days of difficulty. What was the purpose of the covenant? Perhaps it would be wise to elaborate on that. The purpose of? The covenant of death and so on. You haven't said anything about it. I think it would be Doctor Tim's reading tomorrow, but could you tell us what was the purpose? I mean, it began at the beginning of the seven years. Well, this, I, I take it that the, the purpose of that covenant was to set in order a s- a scene and situation where the nation were satisfied and the political powers were satisfied to set the day for what is taking place. It is the reemergence of the nation of Israel on the political scene. Yeah. And that's the point that's recognized in Daniel's prophecy. That will be recognized worldwide whenever the leader in Israel sits down to sign the covenant with the man from the west, of whom the coming, the coming prince of Daniel's prophecy. So that point will be the public and worldwide recognition. Now, we know that Israel exists today and does exist, and will exist, and out of that nation will come a man who will sit down with a Western leader, sign a covenant, and from that moment the clock of prophecy begins to tick again. Its purpose to bring peace, to remove the problem of the Middle East. We got, you would say, looking back, you got very near it a month or two ago, eh, but that was only a foreshadowing, but there will be a moment, friend, there will be a covenant of peace signed, and God calls that a covenant with hell. Yes, would you do believe that's the treaty with death that Isaiah speaks about? I do, yes. Yes, that's right. Why not speak of peace and then war? Yeah. What was it? For peace, national peace for the nation. Yeah. Political peace, economic peace, it's supported by a Western power. But those are the aims, but that's not going to be realized. That's why we have the, the, the, the very opposites of that. Yeah, yeah. Henry James has touched on what I wanted to mention, but can I just ask if we can clarify this point about the gospel of the kingdom? It's different in a sense, and yet in a sense it's not different. In other words, the fundamental basis of salvation in every age is repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. It is. And they're not, they're not preaching anything different to that. They're preaching it in different circumstances. That's right. And the, the, the terms are applied in such a way that it's understood by the hearers for, for the particular. If I may follow up a point that Samuel has made here, the link with chapter ten is important. That, one would say that mission was never completed. No. Now it's to be taken up again. Yeah. Taken up again, very likely by the hundred and forty four thousand. Yeah. that will take up that mission on a worldwide scale. So it's preached among all, witness unto all nations. I see. Now those nations must be the same as chapter twenty Uh, make disciples of all nations. It's a worldwide evangel that lays emphasis on what Christ has done. The basis of the gospel is still the same as ever in every age, but it will preach a coming king. We should remember that God's intention was never just to choose one nation and to disregard the Gentiles, but that God was to use Israel as an evangelist to the nations, and that is seen clearly, um, in the Old Testament, but they failed, of course, but we can see it in Matthew ten. and there is a distinction between the two sendings forth, as we know, but then we come now to this day, and we can see that will be seen in its consummation then, and the great message of the one hundred and forty four thousand evangelists, which all have Jewish pedigree with the names of the twelve tribes, will bring the salvation of a unnumbered multitude, uh, from every tongue and tribe and nation. Now we're getting into the end, Brother Halalhat, and then Willie, sorry. You have mentioned in the, the preaching of the gospel is the same. Um, you, you mentioned that now what they have received is, is kept as the proof at the end. Have they received the spirit? You mean in that day, will they receive the Spirit of God? Is that what you're asking? I believe that they will receive the Holy Spirit. I believe that, yes. Yes. Yes. I, I don't think that the blessings and the future that they will enjoy is the same that we have related to the saints of the present day. There are clear dispensational distinctions, for the Spirit of God will be the operative power by which they are born again. And remember, the new birth was alluded to before the church was formed on the... Now, William, I think we are going to a close. He that shall endure to the end shall be seen. God does a crown in you. Can I suggest? You stated that the enduring to the end would be the enduring to the end of his life, cut away in martyrdom. Jimmy suggested the enduring to the end is the end of the tribulation period. Is there not a parallelism with what we have in these two suggestions to what we have in relation to the rapture? You know as well as I do that there are saints who have died in Christ. Yeah. There are saints that are r- have be alive and remain until his coming. But altogether, they will be first raised, changed, caught up, and they will come into eternal spiritual blessing. The salvation in view has in view the millennium. It has in view those who are martyred, blessed and holy are they that take part in the first resurrection. Upon them, the second death has no claim. There are those who will continue until the end of the tribulation, and together they'll go into millennial blessing. Well, there's no doubt about that. I think we, I think it would be take us too long to do, to go in because we had two views already. That's helpful. But it's been very helpful, what you've said, and thank you very much. Now, I think we have to draw things to a close because of the, the time. Uh, let me just say in closing, we've seen in those early first three verses those questions as they sat, as he sat upon that mountain, the Mount of Olives, and we've seen in those verses that followed, uh, not only the questions, but the events that will unfold. And we've thought about the parallel of events as they are depicted both in Revelation chapter six under the breaking of those seals and what we have here. And we've seen that this is speaking to us about what will take place during the first three and a half years of the seventieth week of Daniel's prophecy. And these are fearful days that will yet come, but we are going to see tomorrow, as we come to verse fifteen we'll see the middle of the week and we'll see what will take place from there, but our brother will be taking us through tomorrow verses that will lead towards the manifestation of Christ as King. And we're glad to know that whilst there's a darkness to the picture we've looked at today, there's a brightness to.