But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come

 

 Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.  And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things?  Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down."  

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be?  And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"  And Jesus answered and said to them:  "Take heed that no one deceives you.  For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.  And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.  See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows.  Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.  And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.  Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.  And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.  But he who endures to the end shall be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

 

- Matthew 24:1-14 

 

Yesterday we read that Jesus preached the end of His final public sermon, to the religious leaders in the Temple:   "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.  Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.'  Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.  Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt.  Serpents, brood of vipers!  How can you escape the condemnation of hell?  Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes:  some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.  Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.  Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!  How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!  See!  Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'" 

Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.  And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things?  Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down."   My study Bible reminds us that Christ's prophecy of the destruction of the temple was fulfilled in AD 70, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans.  In connection with Jesus' words to the religious leaders in yesterday's reading, we note that there was a forty year lag between this prophecy and the Siege of Jerusalem, time for individuals in an entire generation to come to repentance.

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be?  And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"  My study Bible comments that the Scriptures describe the end times in a variety of ways, so that no precise chronology can be determined (see Daniel 7-12; Mark 13; Luke 21; 1 Corinthians 15:51-55; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10; and the Book of Revelation).  The Lord's emphasis is on watchfulness and on the practice of virtue, rather than making timetables of things that haven't yet happened.  My study Bible breaks down the pattern given in Matthew's Gospel, which encompasses (1) the initial sorrows (verses 4-14), (2) the great tribulation (verses 15-28), and (3) the coming of the Son of Man (verses 29-31).  This period of the great tribulation includes the whole of the Christian era, and is not limited to the final years before Christ's return.

And Jesus answered and said to them:  "Take heed that no one deceives you.  For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many."  My study Bible asks us to note that it is these warnings against deception to which Jesus gives the most emphasis.  Of particular importance is the warning against following a false Christ, which Jesus will stress again in verses 11, 23-27.

"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.  See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."  The wars here refer first and foremost to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, my study Bible says, but they also certainly include subsequent wars.  Wars are not a sign of the imminent end, but of the opposite -- that the end is not yet (see 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3). 

 

"See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows.  Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.  And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.  Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.  And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.  But he who endures to the end shall be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."  All of these calamities and all this opposition cannot stop the spread of the gospel, my study Bible says.  Indeed, persecutions against the Church often increase the number of souls being converted, it adds.  St. John Chrysostom is cited here, who marveled that while the Romans subdued countless Jews in a political uprising, they could not prevail over twelve Jews unarmed with anything but the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What do end times look like?  While we might find ourselves and others frequently asking this question, and wondering about it since quite soon (relatively speaking) after Christ's Ascension, what we can see from His description is that there are features of the time that look remarkably like our own.  We are familiar with wars; we are familiar with famines, pestilences, and earthquakes.  We know of the tribulation the early Church experienced, and we should be familiar with tribulation and persecution that have continued throughout the centuries and especially during the 20th century under various forms of government, and continues even violently today for many Christians around the world.  Jesus speaks of false prophets, betrayals, lawlessness.  He says that "the love of many will grow cold."  He speaks of hate, both against the Church and inside of the Church, saying that "you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.  And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another."  These are things that have been seen, and things we should remember.  But possibly His most important message is twofold.  Jesus says, "But he who endures to the end shall be saved."  This in itself is an important, lasting message to all of us.  Whatever we go through in life, what Jesus emphasizes is endurance.  We are to persist in a faithful life, living out His commandments, and being His disciples to the best of our ability.  The other part with which He leaves us at this juncture in the reading is, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."  Whatever we see happening in the world and in our lives, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached and will spread.  Now, through sites such as this blog and uncountable others, the gospel of the kingdom is preached throughout the world, and continues to reach people, as well as through more conventional means and venues.  But these two things are important, and especially relevant to today.  We have the message that it is our endurance that He asks of us.  He does not ask the impossible, for great feats and miracles of faith, for astonishing works that dazzle others.  He asks for our endurance, and this means our endurance in faithfulness, in living as He asks us to live and resisting the temptations to lawlessness, letting our love grow cold, betrayals, and hatred.  We are to persist in the gospel and living His gospel.  We might find all kinds of things going haywire in our life, even experiencing betrayals and hatred of one sort or another, or possibly we experience the great upheavals of history such as famine and warfare, earthquakes and pestilences.  But in any case, what He asks of us as a goal is to endure to the end.  Through all things, we turn to Him, to His gospel of the kingdom, to one another, to prayer and to worship, to struggle with what it means to live out our faith as best we can, and to endure.  Let this be our prayer, as the gospel of the kingdom continues to be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations