As Jesus prepared for the institution of the New Covenant through His crucifixion and resurrection,He showed His disciples the magnificence of the Temple in Jerusalem. He told His disciples that the Temple would be destroyed completely, without a single stone still resting on another. (Matt. 24:2) This was fulfilled some 40 years later in 70 A.D., when the Romans tore the Temple apart stone by stone to retrieve gold that had melted in between the stones. This led the disciples to ask the question that still lingers today. "What shall be the sign of Thy coming and the end of the world (age/aeon)? (Matt. 24:3)
Unlike His teachings of previous months that were usually couched in parables, Jesus spoke plainly and simply as to the signs leading to His return and the end of the age. As many today speak fearfully of the end of the world, let me point out, this is not what the Lord said. Jesus spoke of the end of the age (aeon in the Greek), the end of a specific administration and time period of the world. This age that's soon coming to an end is the "times of the Gentiles". (Luke 21:24, Rom. 11:25)
The first signs are as follows:
False Christs that will deceive many (Matt. 24:4-5)
Wars and rumors of wars (vs. 6)
Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom (vs. 7)
Famines (vs. 7)
Pestilences (vs. 7)
Earthquakes in diverse places (vs. 7)
He punctuates this series of signs by pointing out that "all these are the "beginning of sorrws". (vs. 8) These sorrows are birth pangs. This picture of the world and people going through bith pangs is powerful yet simple. Birth pangs begin small, but increase in magnitude of pain and in frequency as the birth nears. The birth in this case being the coming thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ.
It might be argued that all of these signs are present during just about any age of our history. The significant thing in these last days is the magnitude and frequency of these events. The Lord was pointing us to look for wars larger and involving more peoples than have been experienced before. Famine and pestilence to degrees not seen before. Earthquakes in places they don't normally occur. These are the things we are to watch for. This will be the first of a series of articles on the topic, but I wanted God's people to see the simplicity of the signs. You don't need a degree in theology to understand what Jesus was conveying. These signs are not the end of the age, just signals that it is near. And so it is.
