Posted on 03/14/2011 11:30:13 AM PDT by camerongood210
1. Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.
2. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
3. As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
4. Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.
5. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.
6. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
7. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
8. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
10. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,
11. and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
12. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,
13. but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
14. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15. “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—
16. then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house.
18. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak.
19. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!
20. Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
21. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
22. “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
23. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.
24. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
25. See, I have told you ahead of time.
26. “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.
27. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
28. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29. “Immediately after the distress of those days
“‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
30. “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory
31. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32. “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.
33. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.
34. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
35. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Prepare for the deniers; the “where is the promise of His coming” crowd; the “sun comes up & goes down, just as it always has” crowd. As He calls out the last of those who will have ears to hear & eyes to see, the God-haters will just get more vicious. But then...that too is predictable.
The Kingdom is nearing.
It is not a proverb. It is a curse.
pay attention to verse 9.
Matthew 28:20
“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
We’re good to go.
pay attention to verse 9.
its known as a chinese curse
I believe that phrase is referred to as a . . .Curse. ;>)
I don’t know about the rest of you, but since 9/11 something seems to have been set in motion, and it all seems to be accelerating. Birth pains for a lack of a better word for it all.
I’ve had this Scripture on my mind all weekend. In fact i even referenced it in a post about Saudia Arabia earlier. The headlines recently put one in mind of the birth pains the Lord was talking about.
“34. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”
Has Jesus’ generation passed away?
The generation referred to is the generation that sees the second coming of Jesus. And that generation will have no doubt as to His coming as everyone will know but, even still, as in the first coming there will be those who still refuse to believe- as there are one third of the angels who joined Lucifer there will be those in the last generation who likewise will join Lucifer. I pray for the grace and mercy of Jesus, my Lord and Savior in all my days and in the lives of those that choose to believe in Him.
“The generation referred to is the generation that sees the second coming of Jesus. And that generation will have no doubt as to His coming as everyone will know...there will be those in the last generation who likewise will join Lucifer.”
The generation Jesus referred to is “this generation,” wasn’t it? The generation in which he lived. We may have a difference on the meaning of the word “this.” “This” means something present, as opposed to “that,” something not present.
You refer to “that generation,” and “the last generation,” not the generation to which he referred. It seems that even though Jesus said “this generation,” you think it wasn’t the generation in which Jesus lived, but one that hasn’t arrived even after 2000 years!
Surely reasonable people can agree on the meaning of the word “this,” can’t we?
Jesus was answering three questions (v. 3):
- when will this happen,
- what will be the sign of your coming,
- what will be the sign of the end of the age?
Unfortunately, He didn't number the answers 1, 2 and 3, and didn't necessarily even answer them in order.
Therefore, I think His summary (vs 33-34) applies to all the questions. When they/we see all these things, know that the destruction of Jerusalem is imminent (it happened in 70 A.D.) and that the end of the age and His return are imminent (still waiting to see all those things again). In both cases, they did/will occur during that generation - we can debate the exact timeframe, but I believe it will be something on the order of 40-60 years. By pointing us to what happened in 70 A.D., we are better able to understand what to expect when it happens again.
I believe that we all too often ignore the main points of the whole chapter: don't be deceived, don't be alarmed, pray, learn, know, His word will never pass away. If we do all of that, plus the other viewpoints we are to have about the end times, we will ne ready and it won't make a difference what happens, when it happens, or in what order it happens.
Wow, most of you know from experience that re-reading God's Word frequently causes us to reevaluate our lives out of a new, or fresh revelation we get from the scriptures. We are tempted to look for prophetic interpretations that don't become relevent until such a time as God decides that they should become known to us.
Earlier today, I was reading an FR post about Matthew 24. It's the great warning chapter, which outlines what we are to watch out for at the beginning of the Last Days. It talks about wars, earthquakes and false messians; nothing new here folks. Of course, we have just finished the 20th Centuary the most war plagued time in man's history, so rumors of wars is nothing new. However, what really stimulates the thinking mind these days is the recent disasterous earthquakes in Japan, Indonesia, Haiti and Chile.
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