Why Study The End Times? The Daily Devo #18

Why Study The End Times? 

Monday, April 27, 2020

Today read Matthew 24:1-14

Our Key verse: Matthew 24:8 All of these are the beginning of birth pains.

Let me begin today by looking back at history.

Adolf Hitler was a very evil man, and during the days of on of the most vicious persecutions of the Jewish nation, Hitler wrote out a mandate to be read at all of the state churches in Germany.  

The result of the mandate was that the following procedure was to be carried out during any church service where there could be Jewish participation.  

At the beginning of the service the leader of the church, often the pastor, was to stand and say, “Would all that are Jewish please rise, those standing will now turn and leave the church.  

Now will all of the women in this church who are Jewish please stand up and those standing will now exit the building.  Now will all of those in this congregation who had a Jewish grandparent on the maternal side please stand up?  You will now leave.  

Will all of those who had a Jewish grandparent on the paternal side stand up?  You are ordered to leave.  Now all of those who have any Jewish blood anywhere in the family line please stand up?  You will now leave the church.”

This happened during the Holocaust.  It was one of the most terrible invasions of the church, in church history.  And I can imagine in my mind, Jesus Christ leaving the building for he was a Jew, and his parents, and his grandparents were Jewish.  

Many downplay the awfulness of it.  My friend there was a time like that and in fact in a real sense all of history has been unkind to the Jewish nation.  

There never have been such a persecuted people in the entire world as the Jews.  Today, even among Christians there are many who believe that God has finally and forever completed his work with the Jewish nation - that we should not be concerned about them.   

That we should not witness to them, or that we should not win them to the Messiah.  But careful students of the word of God understand that it is impossible to forever remove the elective purposes of God for his people the Jewish nation.  

It cannot be done without destroying a vast portion of God's word.  In fact as we look at Matthew 24 & Revelation chapter 6 &7, this week we see God's people, the Jews, being preserved during the tribulation.  

And we are reminded again of what Paul wrote to the church of Roman in  Romans 11:2 “God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew…”

God has not rejected or forgotten His people.  God is not finished with the Jewish people.    God has a plan for the Jews just like he has a plan for the Gentiles. 

You really cannot understand Matthew 24 & 25 unless you understand that the majority of it is written about that which we know as the time of Jacob's Trouble.  

What is Jacob’s Trouble? Simply: The time of Jacob's Trouble is another term the Bible uses for the Tribulation, and it reminds us that it is very Jewish in content and in context.   For the Jews will accept the Anit-Christ as Messiah during the Tribulation. 

Sometimes it is called Daniel’s 70th  week.  

As I've shared with you in the previous weeks I believe the table is already set for these days to come upon the world in an instant.  I believe we are experiencing what Jesus referred to in Matthew 24:8 All of these are the beginning of birth pains.   

I want to look this week in our study at what happens immediately after the beginning of sorrows in that which time we know as the tribulation.

Some people have the opinion that it seems rather strange if we are not going to be here, that we should ever talk about these days.  I mean after all if we are going to heaven in the rapture and then tribulation is going to take place after we are gone why do we care?    I think there are several reasons why we care:

First of all:  God would not have told us what he did not want us to know!  If it were not important God would not have given it to us!  God has recorded it for us in his eternal perfect word  and we have a responsibility to study it.

But moreover I think it should make us grateful, that by the grace of God we will not experience the time of God's wrath.  

Every time I read Revelation 6 through 19, I want to get on my knees and give thanks to the Lord that He has called us not to wrath but to glory!   And that during those chapters the church is absent and not mentioned. 

I also think it should make us prayerful!  Not just grateful but prayerful!  Because should the rapture of the church take place many of us know people who do not confess Christ and they will have to endure these terrible days… so we should pray for them.

For I believe studying and knowing and talking about such times will literally move one to make eternal decisions that we might not otherwise make if we were forced to think about what could and will happen, studying what will happen in the tribulation ought to make us prayerful.

 It also should make us careful!  The way we live our life and the testimony of our life, and the way we conduct ourselves we can be those who rescue people out of the burning fire.  We can be allowed by God to be an example of the grace of God. Because of that people will see Christ in us and they will be saved from the wrath to come, so we should be careful!  We have reason to be grateful, prayerful, and careful. 

But if I  am wrong and we as Christians do indeed endure the tribulation we need to be aware.  we need to be wise to what will happen and be wise to the things that are to come.