4. THE "WATCH" PASSAGES
Matthew 24 is key to our understanding of who comes when. Remember the questions of the disciples? "When will you come?" "When will the world end?"
Jesus goes into a long description, not of signs of the end, but signs that are not the end, so they will not be confused. Then comes a couple of clear signals.
a. The Gospel will be preached in all the world. And even more specific:
b. The abomination of desolation, described by Daniel and Paul, will occur in Jerusalem.
People living in the region will flee. Pandemonium everywhere. For three and a half long years, unprecedented trouble on earth.
Immediately after the tribulation, He comes.
Now, after all I have said, have you figured out the exact day and hour? No! And neither had the disciples. And neither will the people living in that time, per Jesus' words in verse 36:
"Of that day and hour no one knows."
You see how He goes from clear sign to general time in just a few verses?
Hidden in the talk of great tribulation and an abomination that desolates, is the teaching of the antichrist. Jesus says here in so many words, "Antichrist must come first. Then Me."
After all of this horrendous trouble, the words of Jesus, addressed to those remaining believers - and they do remain! - is the solemn command, "Watch!"
Our Father knew that scanning the skies for at least 2,000 years would be fruitless. But in that day, Watch! When you get that far in history, any day, Jesus will come. Be ready when He comes.
That doctrine of "any day", theologically known as "imminence" has been transferred to us in this pre-tribulation time. Perhaps wrongly. But let's examine some more "watch" passages.
I find the next occurrence in Matthew's next chapter, 25. It follows a parable about ten virgins. There is a sense in which this can be applied to any age, any believer, but you will note that chapter 25 begins with the word, "Then."
Then? When? In this time period of which we speak. Satan in the form of his antichrist, wreaking havoc. The Jerusalem temple inhabited by a man of sin. Unspeakable horrors everywhere. Then!
And yet, in some corners of the earth in that day, normal life is trying to surface. As we remember after 9-11, the call back to normalcy was immediate. People will live. They will survive. They keep trying to believe that all is and will be well.
Remember the stories of the period of the Holocaust? In the midst of the horror, there was a "normal life" going on.
For those Christians, reminded now of their duty to stay full of the Holy Ghost, the command again, to "watch!" You just don't know exactly when He is coming. You've endured this long. The temptation is great to join the "normal" folks who have sold out to antichrist and can eat and drink and buy and sell. Don't yield. Wait. He's really coming. Any day.
As I say, the applications for all time, all believers, are clear and real. But the specificity of this word, "Then" cannot be ignored either.
Once Antichrist has come, Christ is due any moment.
Yes, John in his day said there are many antichrists. Through history, many saw emperors and Popes in that role. The whole world system can be viewed as antichrist also. There are "many antichrists," says John.
But one day there will be a man. One man. Filled with Satan. Raised from the dead. Sitting in the Temple. Attempting to rule a planet. When you see that, Watch!
Jesus in verse 33 says that when we see all these things, and that includes antichrist, tribulation, all of it, then you know Jesus is at the very door.
Not until then.
So how must I watch? I must be ready to go to Jesus any minute of any day, through death.
Mark's Gospel records the words of Jesus that include everyone of all time:
"What I say to you (disciples) I say to all: Watch!" These words are spoken in the same context as Matthew 24. Now, Jesus has already said in Matthew that there are signs of His coming. Then he tells everyone of every generation to watch.
The Father, speaking through Jesus, knows that Jesus' coming is not imminent in every generation, but only one. Yet he has us all watching.
Watching for the coming of the Son of Man into our lives, into our world. Watching lest, like His sleepy disciples, we miss the main events of our lives. Watching, which is always accompanied by praying, so that our lives not be snatched away by the Enemy of our souls. Watching is a lifestyle.
But only the last generation will be watching the eastern sky for the revelation of the Son of God.
Luke (21:36) adds yet another comment of Jesus, again in this same discourse. Preceded by "watch" is the notion that if we watch and pray, we will be among those who escape the things that are about to happen.
The tribulation is past in this verse. The Gospel has been preached in all the world. Antichrist has come and failed. Only one thing remains, the coming, with judgment, of the Judge Jesus.
Those who are praying and watching at that hour will be caught up together to meet the Lord and the rest of the church already assembled and with Him.
This passage is not about escaping trouble, but escaping the wrath of God, for which we were not appointed.
Jesus is not alone in His efforts to create a people who watch. Paul tells his disciples in I Corinthians 16:13, I Thessalonians 5:6, and II Timothy 4:5 to do the same. Peter follows suit in I Peter 4:7.
Jesus, via the apostle John, has a final word about watching in Revelation 3:3. It is to the "dead" church at Sardis. If you do not stay awake, He says, I will come to you as a thief, that is, in the same way that I will be coming to the world. You will be shocked when you see just how many people in your congregation are not in the Lamb's Book of Life, how many whose names I will not confess before My Father.
Watching is our very life. We look for Jesus to be in our midst all the time. This is not about eschatology only, it is about the Spirit-filled life. There are watchers in every generation of church history, and non-watchers. There are people who are alert, and people who are asleep.
These watchers are not fearful of the Lord's sudden snatching. That is not why they watch. They simply love Jesus. They are in prayer, in the Word, in fellowship, serving.
They watch their mouth and the words that come out of it. They watch their weight. They watch their attitude. They watch their friend list.
What Jesus said in the first century He says to us today. Watch. Stay awake. Stay alert.
And none of the above has anything to do with whether antichrist or Christ comes first. If Jesus is not coming for 1000 years, and I can prove it, I am still to watch, not the sky, but my life.
But in that last generation, an added quality is placed on the command. For then, the physical coming of the Lord draws near, and any day our long watch will end.
5. WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
There is a shade of difference between watching and looking in the New Testament. As we have seen, watching has to do with the heart, and the discipline of keeping that heart fixed on Jesus Christ. It has end time significance, but it is not only end time in its scope.
"Looking" gets a little more specific. When we do look to the future and we do "see" in our mind's eye that something or someone is coming, exactly what is it we are looking for?
The critics of post-trib complain that people who believe in Matthew and Paul's order of events are not looking for Christ, but looking for antichrist; the Bible, they imply, demands that we look for Christ!
So let's take a look at looking.
Jesus says to "Look up" at a certain point in history. We talked about that verse above, Luke 21:28. When should we physically look up? We should look up when we see "these things" begin to take place. What things? The things He talked about in the Olivet Discourse: The unprecedented Tribulation, the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, the actual coming of Jesus to earth.
Definitely we'll be looking for Jesus at that moment. No one contests that!
But what about before that final moment?
Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews give us clues. Let's look at Peter first.
II Peter 3:10-14. He starts by saying the day of the Lord will come as a thief. We'll talk about the "thief" context in Paul's writings. But significant here is that Peter is clearly talking about Jesus' coming to earth, and the destruction that will accompany that return. No one sees a pre-tribulation rapture in this particular passage.
Placed alongside of the account of Jesus in Matthew 24, we conclude that this coming follows the reign of antichrist. Again, antichrist has already come when Peter's "coming" is cited. When he speaks of the "day of God" he is talking about the return.
But in verse 12, he simply says that we should be "looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God..."
Do you get the point I am making? Though antichrist will come first, and great trouble and destruction, and Peter would not deny that, Peter is looking for Jesus.
Following is a great revelation for some, but let me try it out: It is possible to be looking for two things at the same time! Peter is here looking for a series of catastrophic events to occur at one point in the last days. But it doesn't take away his focus. Nor does it diminish his zeal, or "lull" him to sleep to know that Jesus comes at the end of a series of events!
On the contrary, note his words: what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness!
Judgment is coming! Trouble is coming! Wrapped up in all of this is the work of the antichrist! Get holy, people of God!
Seems to me that the persons who preach that we escape all these difficulties are the ones being lulled to lala land.
What did Peter "look for" and what did he tell his people to "look for"? Verse 14: "Therefore beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent..."
The writer of Hebrews in 9:28 states that Jesus died for our sins the first time He was here, and that He will appear a second time to those who are eagerly looking for Him.
Second time. I see no third time mentioned. Those who have concocted the pre-tribulation doctrine say they speak of two phases of the second coming, not a third coming. Dubious way of handling Scripture, in my opinion.
We are told by them that the people called the church will be eagerly awaiting for Jesus at the "rapture", but what of those so-called (by the creators of the doctrine) "Tribulation" saints, the ones who do get it together during that seven years? Will they not be eagerly looking for Him? Will they be saved? Are they not church if they are saints? Many unanswerable questions.
I like the simplicity of the math here: He came once. We are looking for Him to come twice. For these multiplied centuries, this Hebrews writer, and the historic church, called this second coming, well, the second coming. And it's after antichrist, who comes first.
The two passages where Paul says we are looking for Jesus must be called "neutral" on the subject. In the light of the passages I have just quoted, they do not change the order of events. But I am sure that those who believe Jesus comes to rescue us from the Tribulation, will see in these verses something different. But as I say, nothing definitive is said here about the subject at hand.
Here are his words:
Philippians 3:20. "For our citizenship is in Heaven, from which also we eagerly await (look for) a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."
Titus 2:13. "[we are] looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus."
Looking for Jesus. Looking for our blessed hope. Does that mean that nothing else will come first, that we can expect nothing to lead up to the event? We've already seen in Peter that we can indeed expect other things. Let's look closer at the last season of time.
