Mount Olivet Discourse -
Part 10
by Paul George
Matthew 24:36- 39
Jesus said that no one knows the time of His return, not the
angels, nor the Son, but only the Father. What does He mean
in light of the fact that Matthew 24:4- 31 speaks concerning
the tribulation period that is seven 360-day year, divided
at the midpoint by the abomination of desolation? In other
words, alert believers in the tribulation should be able to
know the exact day of the second coming since Luke 21:28
says, "But when these things begin to take place, straighten
up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is
drawing near." Also, in Matthew 24:34 Jesus said, that the
generation that sees "all these things," will not pass away
until Christ returns. So what does Matthew 24:36 mean in
light of these things?
In this passage Jesus is referred to as "the Son." When the
New Testament uses terms like "the Son," or " the Son of
Man," as occurs in the next verse, it stresses His humanity
and the incarnation. In His incarnation as the Son of Man,
it was not given to Him, or revealed to Him the time of His
return. During Christ’s incarnation, the Father alone
exercised unrestricted knowledge of the time of Jesus’
return to earth.
In the second illustration Jesus compares the time of His
second coming and that of the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37).
First, the passage says that the second coming of Christ
will be just like the days of Noah. Does this mean that
there is an extensive list of items that can be compared
with the days of Noah? The likeness is seen in the
suddenness of the coming of the judgment and the
unpreparedness of the world. On more than one occasion the
New Testament compares the second coming to the flood in
Noah' s days (Luke 17:26- 27; 2 Peter 2:4- 11), as well as
to other judgments such as the days of Lot (Luke 17:28- 30).
The central point found in these passages is that
unbelievers were not prepared for God’s judgment. This is
the intention of Christ in this passage as well. Lack of
preparedness is reinforced by the examples that our Lord
cites. The unprepared of that day will be so absorbed in
pleasing themselves that they miss the fact that they are
living in extraordinary times that would justify the
abandoning the normal routines of life.
While eating and drinking relates to daily unpreparedness,
marrying and giving in marriage illustrates unpreparedness
concerning one’s long-range perspective. Marriage, while
certainly an institution ordained of God is good in-and-of
itself, the point here is that one should not be engaged in
long-ranged planning while unprepared for impending
judgment. Just as it would make no sense to plan marriage in
the days of Noah leading up to the Flood, if one was
unprepared to face God' s judgment, in the same way, it
makes no sense to plan for marriage in the face of the
events of the tribulation that will lead up to the second
coming.
In the days of Noah, Noah had been preaching concerning the
coming judgment of God (2 Peter 2:5), yet no one, other than
Noah’s family paid attention to his message. Instead, they
went about business as usual, ignoring the warnings of God’s
Word. Perhaps the most sobering statement in this passage is
that "they did not understand." They did not put two and two
together, until the flood came and took them all away. Jesus
said, "so shall the coming of the Son of Man be."
Jesus did not say the unbelievers did come to understand
these things. However, their understanding did not come
until the flood came and took them all away. This is what
separates believers from unbelievers. Believers accept God’s
Word before an event occurs because they trust Him and His
prophetic word. On the other hand, an unbeliever has to be
shown these things through experience, in this case a very
bad experience, what about you? Do you trust God and His
Word because He says it, or are you one who has to be shown
things from experience? There is a big difference between
the two.
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