And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’” and will mislead many. And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name. And at that time many will fall away and will deliver up one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many. And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come. (24:4-14)

Verse 4 begins the Olivet discourse proper, which Jesus gave in response to the disciples’ question, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (v. 3). As discussed in the last chapter, the Twelve “supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately” (Luke 19:11), and the events of the past few days had confirmed that idea even more firmly in their minds. They had long believed that Jesus was the Messiah and that John the Baptist was His prophesied forerunner. The acclaim of the crowds at Jesus’ triumphal entry, at His cleansing the Temple, at His rebuking the religious leaders, as well as at His predicting the destruction of the Temple all combined to make them think He would soon manifest His messianic glory, subdue the nations that would rise up against Him, and establish His eternal kingdom. They had been unable to accept His numerous predictions that He would first have to suffer, die, and be raised up.

The disciples thought that Jesus’ preaching, healing, comforting, rendering judgment, and restoring Israel would occur at the same general time in history. Like the Old Testament prophets who spoke of the Messiah, they saw only a single coming, comprised of a sequence of events (see, e.g, Isa. 61:1-11).

It was when Jesus read from that passage in Isaiah during the synagogue service in Nazareth that He gave perhaps the first clue that His coming would be in two parts. He stopped reading in the middle of verse 2, omitting the phrase “and the day of vengeance of our God.” He then explained, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21). He was emphasizing that He had not come at that time to render judgment but only to preach the gospel and heal diseases.

But because they had missed that clue, as well as the many more specific teachings about His coming to die for man’s sin, the disciples were expecting Jesus to complete His messianic mission at any moment, perhaps in the next few days or weeks. They were on their tiptoes, as it were, waiting for something dramatic to happen. They sensed that the son of Isaiah 9:6 was ready to take on His shoulders the government of the kingdom of God, that the stone cut out without hands of Daniel 2:34 was ready to crush the power of evil men. The Messiah, the Prince, was ready to make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, and be anointed the most holy King. They sensed that the Son of Man would very soon be given dominion and glory in an eternal kingdom. They were convinced that very soon Israel would turn back to the Lord and call on His name and that He “will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God’” (Zech. 13:9).

But in the Olivet discourse, Jesus makes clear that that fulfillment was in the future. The message of Matthew 24-25 is a prophetic sermon that sweeps the Twelve into a time not yet come, a time they themselves would never experience.

There are at least seven indicators in the message itself that it refers to the distant future and could not apply either to the events related to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, as many interpreters have suggested, or to the church age, as others propose.

The first indicator will be like birth pains, of which the false Christs (Matt. 24:5), international warfare (vv. 67a), and famines and earthquakes (v. 7b) are “merely the beginning” (v. 8). The figure of birth pains was commonly used by ancient Jewish writers, especially in regard to the end times. The great modern Jewish scholar Alfred Edersheim wrote, “Jewish writings speak very frequently of the labor pains of Messiah.”

Labor pains do not occur at conception or throughout pregnancy but just before birth. The figure of birth pains therefore would not have been appropriate to represent either the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred very near the beginning of the church age, or the church age as a whole.

Paul reminded the Thessalonians that the return of Christ would come as a thief in the night—unexpectedly, quietly, and suddenly. Using the same figure Jesus used in the Olivet discourse, the apostle said that “while they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thess. 5:1-3).

Labor pains do not begin until shortly before delivery time, and they occur with increasing frequency until the baby is born. In the same way, the events connected with the Lord’s return will not begin until just before His return, and they will occur with increasing rapidity, building up to an explosion of catastrophic events. The same epoch is pictured in the book of Revelation, as the seal judgments unfold over a period of perhaps years (see 6:1–8:1-6), the trumpet judgments over a much shorter period of time, perhaps weeks (see 8:7–9:21; 11:15-19), and the bowl judgments over the period of perhaps a few days or even hours (see 16:1-21).

The second indicator that those events are future is found in Matthew 24:13-14, in which Jesus speaks of believers who will endure the birth pains to the end. Since the disciples obviously did not live to the end of the age, the events of chapters 24-25 could not apply to them or to any other believers up to and including the present time. Because all believers living then will be raptured just before the Tribulation (1 Thess. 4:17), the events could not apply to any Christian living before that time. They can apply only to those who come to belief in Christ during the Tribulation, those whose genuine faith is proved by their endurance to the end (Matt. 24:13).

A third indicator is the worldwide proclamation of the gospel (Matt. 24:14). That event absolutely rules out any time during the apostolic age, when even the Roman empire was only partially evangelized. It could not even apply to modern times, when, despite the spread of the gospel through modern mass media to most parts of the world, there are still billions of people who have never heard the gospel. As implied in Matthew 24:14 and made clear in Revelation 14:6-7, the future worldwide declaration of which Jesus spoke will be miraculous and instantaneous.

A fourth indicator is “the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet” (Matt. 24:15). Daniel predicted that just before the Messiah sets up His kingdom and judges the world, the Antichrist “will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate” (Dan. 9:27). That is yet to occur.

A fifth indicator that Jesus is speaking of a future time is the “great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall” (Matt. 24:21). The terrible events Jesus describes in this message will be the worst of all human history and will occur at the very end of the present age, when God’s full and final judgment is meted out on ungodly men. Jesus is referring to the time predicted by Daniel when “there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time” and which will be accompanied by the resurrection of the righteous to everlasting life and of the wicked to everlasting condemnation (Dan. 12:1-2).

A sixth indicator is that “immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky” (Matt.24:29-30). Those supernatural events obviously have not yet transpired.

The seventh and last indicator that Jesus was speaking of the distant future is the figure of the fig tree (Matt. 24:32-35). Just as the budding leaves of a fig tree signal that summer is near, so the occurring of the events Jesus mentions here will signal His imminent return. “This generation,” that is, the generation living during the time of those end-time events, “will not pass away until all these things take place” (v. 34). The signs of Matthew 24-25 will all be fully experienced within one generation, a generation that could be no other than the generation living when Christ returns.

The whole fulfillment of the Olivet discourse, therefore, is future. It is not that most of the circumstances and conditions mentioned here have not been experienced before. There have been wars and rumors of wars virtually since the Fall, and there have been famines and earthquakes since the beginning of recorded history. But the events of Matthew 24-25 will be unique to the end times in detail, in sequence, in scale, and in extent. Some of the events, such as the disruption of the physical universe (24:29), will be completely unique.

The fact that Jesus spoke in the second person, especially in chapter 24, does not prove He was speaking to the disciples about their own generation. The Old Testament prophets frequently addressed messages to people yet unborn, some of whom would live hundreds of years in the future. God picked up the prophet, as it were, and transported him to the time of which he was to prophesy, and he spoke as if he were standing directly before those future generations (see, e.g., Isa. 33:17-24; 66:10-14; Zech. 9:9). Jesus was saying, in effect, “You who are alive at that time, . . .”

Beginning in Matthew 24:4, Jesus answers the disciples’ questions, “When will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (v. 3). He responds to the two parts of the question in reverse order. He does not deal with the “when” until 24:36, saying, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” In 24:4-14, He begins to answer the second part of the question by describing the initial group of six signs, the “birth pains” that will occur just before His coming: deception by false Christs (vv. 4-5), dissension among the nations of the world (vv. 6-7a), worldwide devastation (vv. 7b-8), deliverance of believers to tribulation (v. 9), defection of false believers (vv. 10-13), and the declaration of the gospel to the whole world (v. 14).

DECEPTION BY FALSE CHRISTS

And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ ” and will mislead many. (24:4-5)

The first birth pain to signal Christ’s return will be widespread deception by a proliferation of false Christs. There were false Christs, or Messiahs, before Jesus’ time, and there have been others at various times since, including many in our own day. But in the end times their number and influence will vastly increase.

Jesus is warning those who will be living during the end times, which will not include believers of the church age (who will either have died or been raptured before the Tribulation). The deception of those days will be intensified and escalated as never before, as the Holy Spirit withdraws His restraining power and lets all hell break loose. The evils, deceptions, sorrows, tragedies, conflicts, and animosities of those days will exceed all others the world has ever known.

Because deception will be at its apex, Jesus warns, See to it that no one misleads you. Blep (see to it) literally means simply “to see,” but was often used, as here, in the sense of “keep your eyes open,” or “beware.” In his parallel account Luke reports Jesus as saying, “See to it that you be not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and ‘The time is at hand’; do not go after them” (21:8). Later in the discourse Jesus repeats the warning: “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:23-24). Empowered by demons, the end-time false Christs will manifest supernatural powers that previous ones have not possessed.

As the number of deceivers grows, so will the number of vulnerable people who desperately look for answers to the overwhelming calamities that torment them (see 2 Pet. 2:1-3; 2 Tim. 3:13). The world will begin to disintegrate, suffering will become unbearable, and sin will reach its maximum potential. The moral and spiritual influence of the church will be gone, and even more significantly, the restraining power of the Holy Spirit will be removed (see 2 Thess. 2:7). The world’s systems and institutions will start to self-destruct from unbridled wickedness.

To take advantage of that desperate situation, an abundance of false and cleverly deceptive messiahs will arise, each claiming, I am the Christ. Their spurious gospels will mislead many, as they promise to deliver men from their problems and troubles. The epitome of that false group will be the Antichrist, the ultimate false messiah and deceiver. As Jesus Christ was righteousness incarnate, the Antichrist will be evil incarnate. In the book of Daniel he is called an insolent king, skilled in intrigue (8:23), a self-willed tyrant who magnifies himself above every god and speaks monstrous evil against the God of gods (11:36). Paul calls him the man of lawlessness and the son of destruction (2 Thess. 2:3), and in the book of Revelation he is called the beast (11:7; 13:1-10).

DISPUTES AND WARFARE AMONG THE NATIONS

And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, (24:6-7a)

The second birth pain will involve intensified and unparalleled disputes and warfare among the nations and kingdoms of the world.

You will be hearing translates a form of the future tense of mell that carries the idea of continual hearing. There will be constant talk of actual wars and of rumors of wars, to a degree the world has never known before. There doubtless will be both hot wars of physical combat and cold wars of economic and political conflict. Following the analogy of labor pains, the implication is that the conflicts will increase both in number and intensity as the return of Christ approaches, until they explode into a grand holocaust of bloodshed and carnage.

But believers during that time should not be frightened, Jesus says, because those things are certain evidence that God’s plan is unfolding according to His will. Those events, ghastly and destructive as they will be, must take place, Jesus said. They are harbingers of the end, but they are not yet the end.

There seems to be no distinction between nation and kingdom, unless the former represents countries with a form of democracy and the latter those under a form of autocracy, or dictatorship. The point is that no group of people will be exempt from war or the threat of war. The conflicts will undoubtedly include racial, ethnic, and cultural as well as national confrontations, much as we see in the world today, except on a vaster and more intense scale. Confrontations of every sort will accelerate throughout the world. The books of Daniel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New give many details regarding the coming conflict.

From Daniel we learn that “at the end time the king of the South will collide with [the Antichrist], and the king of the North will storm against him with chariots, with horsemen, and with many ships; and he will enter countries, overflow them, and pass through” (Dan. 11:40). The kingdom of the Antichrist will basically comprise the territory once held by the ancient Roman empire, in particular a western confederacy made up of a unified Europe. Daniel mentions that it will be a ten-nation empire (7:24), which cannot help bringing to mind the present European Common Market.

Daniel earlier spoke of Israel’s making a covenant with the Antichrist in order to protect herself from her neighbors (Dan. 9:27). The Antichrist’s confederacy will completely dominate that part of the world and exert an inordinate power over the rest of the world. The king of the South will come from some part of Africa, and the king of the North will likely be Russia, who will enlist the support of Middle East allies. Those vast military forces will converge on the Holy Land, called “the Beautiful Land” (Dan. 11:41). “Many countries will fall,” Daniel goes on to explain, “but these will be rescued out of his [Antichrist’s] hand: Edom, Moab and the foremost of the sons of Ammon. Then he will stretch out his hand against other countries, and the land of Egypt will not escape. But he will gain control over the hidden treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; and Libyans and Ethiopians will follow at his heels” (vv. 41-43).

The Antichrist apparently defeats the other great powers, at least temporarily. “But rumors from the East and from the North will disturb him, and he will go forth with great wrath to destroy and annihilate many. And he will pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him” (vv. 44-45). The northern and eastern forces regroup, and when the Antichrist goes to meet them he is utterly defeated and destroyed, with no one to help him. Revelation speaks of a great cavalry force of 200 million that will come from the East and destroy a third of mankind (Rev. 9:14-16). It is interesting that the mainland Chinese army passed that number some years ago.

That clash will be a war of mind-boggling magnitude. All the forces of a confederated Europe to the west, Russia to the north, Africa to the south, and Asia to the east will converge on Israel for an immense battle.

Consistent with Daniel’s description, Zechariah prophesied that the Lord “will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle” (Zech. 14:2-3).

Through Haggai the Lord said, “‘I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the power of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the horses and their riders will go down, everyone by the sword of another. On that day,’ declares the Lord of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ declares the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:22-23). It is as if Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah during Haggai’s time and a descendant of David, is pictured as the Messiah, David’s greater Son, who will send His own army to destroy the armies of the world and will then ascend His rightful throne on earth.

It is not difficult in our day to see how such a worldwide conflagration could develop. For many decades the world has lived under the threat of nuclear warfare and the anxiety of increasing strife within and among virtually all nations.

The book of Revelation gives parallel and additional details of the wars and rumors of wars in which the nations and kingdoms of the world will be engaged during the end times. Christ, the Lamb, is portrayed with a scroll in His hand, representing, as it were, the Father’s will and testament bequeathing the world to the Son (Rev. 6:1). As He opens each of the seven seals, the number required under ancient Roman law to keep a will inviolate, Christ sets in motion one of the God-ordained stages of His taking the world back for Himself.

Opening the first seal unleashes the Antichrist, the rider on a white horse who will go out to deceive with the intent to conquer (v. 2). There will not be open warfare at that time, but a false sense of peace and security. Just as Jesus predicted in the Olivet discourse, the first stage of Satan’s final attack will be one of deception and subterfuge. When the second seal is opened, however, the rider on a red horse will be allowed to take that false peace from the world, “that men should slay one another; and a great sword was given to him” (v. 4).

John also saw tremendous conflict generated by three unclean spirits, high-ranking demons of Satan, who will perform great miracles and gather the leaders and armies of the world “together for the war of the great day of God the Almighty. . . . And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon [Armageddon]” (Rev. 16:13-14, 16). Those demon-led forces will converge on Israel and on Jerusalem in particular in an intense but futile effort to prevent Christ, the King of kings, from reclaiming His earthly throne. As they fight each other, Christ will come and destroy them all (19:11-20).

But before the Lord comes to accomplish that final conquest, the Antichrist and the forces of the north, south, and east will engage in ruthless combat and succeed in slaughtering a third of the world’s population. In the face of that unparalleled carnage man’s last vestige of hope will vanish and stark terror will rule the day. Only believers who hold fast to the Lord will have the divinely-given strength and courage to avoid being petrified with fear.

DEVASTATION THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. (24:7b-8)

The next birth pain of the end time will be worldwide devastation. In addition to the deception of false Christs and warring dissension among the nations there will be famines and earthquakes, natural disasters of staggering proportions that will ensue as the cursed earth begins to disintegrate. Luke adds that there will also be plagues and terrors and great signs from heaven (21:11).

Earthquakes, epidemics of deadly disease, dreadful happenings of various sorts, and awesome changes in the sky will torment men. They will see the world begin to disintegrate before their eyes from the unbridled, destructive forces of evil that will ravage it during those indescribable days. The world has witnessed many earthquakes, famines, plagues, and even some heavenly signs, but those will be nothing compared to the calamities of the end times. They will occur in various places and apparently simultaneously. As some parts of the earth starve from famines, others will be shattered by earthquakes, others decimated by plagues, others paralyzed by unspecified terrors, and still others unnerved by changes in the heavens.

John foresaw that when Christ broke the fourth seal of the scroll, authority was given to death and hades “to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth” (Rev. 6:8). When He broke the sixth seal, “there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places” (vv. 12-14).

When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, seven angels were revealed standing before God, and they were each given a trumpet of judgment. As the first trumpet was blown,

there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

And the second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood; and a third of the creatures, which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed.

And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood; and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.

And a fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were smitten, so that a third of them might be darkened and the day might not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way. (Rev. 8:7-12; cf. 16:1-11; Joel 2:10; Acts 2:19-20)

Crops and other vegetation will be devastated throughout the world, those who depend upon the sea for food will suffer famine, a third of the world’s shipping will be destroyed, countless people will be poisoned from contaminated water supplies, and calendars, seasons, and tides will be thrown out of kilter. The physical and emotional agony will be so excruciating that men will gnaw “their tongues because of pain” (Rev. 16:10). “Their torment [will be] like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man,” and “men will seek death and will not find it; and they will long to die and death flees from them” (9:5-6).

Some time later, when the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air,

there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. And the great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. . . . And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe. (Rev. 16:17-21; cf. 11:13)

But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. There is much more to come.

DELIVERANCE OF BELIEVERS TO TRIBULATION

Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name. (24:9)

The fourth labor pain of the end times will be severe persecution of believers by the evil, ungodly world. More than ever before in history, the holy people of God will be treated in an unholy way, and in that sense they will be desecrated.

Paradidmi (will deliver) has the basic meaning of giving over and was often used in a technical sense for arrest by the police or military (see Matt. 4:12). After being taken into custody, believers will suffer extreme tribulation. Many will be murdered, and all will be hated by all nations on account of My name. In his parallel passage, Mark reports that Jesus said, “They will deliver you to the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them” (13:9). The courts probably represent Gentile authority, and the synagogues obviously represent Jewish authority, indicating that persecution will come from both groups. Being identified with Christ’s name will cost believers their freedom, their rights, their respect, and often their lives.

As already noted, those will be people who are saved after the rapture of the church, having been converted to Christ during the Tribulation. Many will be saved through the preaching of the two witnesses the Lord will send to minister for a period of three and a half years (Rev. 11:3). During that time the witnesses will be supernaturally protected (v. 4), but “when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them” (v. 7). After three and a half days, they will be resurrected and taken up into heaven, and that miracle itself will cause additional people to be saved and to give “glory to the God of heaven” (vv. 11-13).

The persecution will not be directed so much against believers themselves as against God, whom they serve and represent. The unbelieving world will intensify its hatred of God, and because it cannot attack Him directly it will fiercely attack His people. When Paul said he bore in his body “the brand-marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17), he was affirming that he had received wounds that were really directed at Christ. Because people could not get to Christ, they abused the one who represented Him.

When the Holy Spirit withdraws His restraint and Satan is allowed greater freedom, the saints will suffer as they never have before. For those who openly profess Christ there will be no place to hide and no way of escape. They will not be persecuted and martyred for what they do but for who they are. They will suffer on account of Christ’s name, that is, because they are identified with Him.

When Christ broke the fifth seal of the scroll, John saw those martyred saints under the altar,

the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed also. (Rev. 6:9-11)

Later John saw a “great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Rev.7:9-10). One of the elders explained to the apostle that “these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (v. 14).

The murders of which unbelieving mankind will not repent (Rev. 9:21) will include the killing of other unbelievers, but as with the Antichrist (13:7) and the great harlot (17:6), the most vicious assaults will be on the saints.

DEFECTION OF FALSE BELIEVERS

And at that time many will fall away and will deliver up one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many. And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved. (24:10-13)

The fifth birth pain is a consequence of the fourth. As persecution intensifies in the end times and believers begin to be arrested, hated, and martyred for Christ’s sake, many supposed Christians will defect. Although they will have had an outward identification with Christ, they will prove by their desertion that they never belonged to Him. When the persecution becomes too severe, they will forsake Christ and join fellow unbelievers in assailing God’s people.

Jesus mentions three reasons for their defection: the price will be too high, the deception of false teachers will be too convincing, and sin will be too attractive.

THE COST WILL BE TOO HIGH

And at that time many will fall away and will deliver up one another and hate one another. (24:10)

Every noble cause has hangers-on who love to be associated with it while it is popular but who fall away as soon as criticism or conflicts arise. Christ’s church is no exception. Throughout its history it has had adherents who like to bear the name Christian when it is acceptable and respected in society but who quickly lose their devotion when that name is maligned and those who bear it are persecuted (see Matt. 13:20-21).

The sham Christians who will fall away during the Tribulation will not be true believers who are simply weak and cowardly but unbelievers who reveal their true character when they openly reject Christ and viciously betray His people. They will not be like Peter, who in a moment of fear and weakness denied knowing Christ, but like Judas, who because of His inner hatred of Christ betrayed Him to His enemies.

John declares that such pretenders leave Christian fellowship because they were never truly a part of it. “They went out from us,” he says, because “they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). Such people abandon Christ’s visible church because they were never a part of His invisible church. They forsake God’s earthly family because they were never born into His heavenly family. “If you abide in My word,” Jesus said, “then you are truly disciples of Mine” (John 8:31); and on the day of judgment He will declare to false believers, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23).

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master,” Jesus said. “It is enough for the disciple that he become as his teacher, and the slave as his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!” (Matt. 10:24-25). The true disciple of Christ is willing to suffer as Christ suffered, and no amount of affliction will cause Him to renounce his Lord and Savior. “Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. . . . And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me” (vv. 32-33, 38; cf. 2 Tim. 2:12).

A professed Christian who turns His back on Jesus Christ and refuses to suffer for His sake was not a true believer in the first place. A person who genuinely belongs to Christ may sometimes falter and be disobedient, but he will never reject His Lord. The person who belongs to Christ continues to confess Him, to serve Him, and to suffer for Him when that is necessary. He does not endure because of his own strength and fortitude but because he is indwelt by Christ’s own Spirit, who never fails to give sustaining grace to God’s children.

The writer of Hebrews sounded the warning to those in the early church: “Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God” (Heb. 3:12). Paul declared to Timothy, “It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us” (2 Tim. 2:11-12).

This text leads us to believe that, just as during the present age, professing Christians living during the Tribulation will not all be authentic. Many will be counterfeit, and when the cost of discipleship becomes too demanding they will abandon Christ and His church. They will be like those would-be disciples who said to Jesus, “I will follow You wherever You go” and “Permit me first to go and bury my father” and “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” They will put their hand to the plow of discipleship, but they will not forsake the old life, demonstrating that they have never received the new. They are therefore not “fit for the kingdom of God,” Jesus said, because their hearts have never been with Him (Luke 9:57-62).

The defecting false believers in the end time will not be satisfied simply with leaving the church but will join in its persecution. They will deliver up one another and hate one another. God’s people will be betrayed by those who once were a part of their fellowship but who become offended at Christ when the cost rises too high. Both to save their own skins as well as to vent the hatred for the things of God they have always had in their hearts, they will turn informer and persecutor. At that time, Jesus said, “brother will deliver brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death” (Mark 13:12; cf. Luke 21:16). Not only within the assembly at large but within individual families, those who do not truly belong to Christ will turn against those who do, even to the point of betraying their own children and parents into martyrdom.

THE DECEPTION WILL BE TOO CONVINCING

And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many. (24:11)

Just as some false believers will defect because the cost is too high, others will defect because they are deceived about the gospel.

During the Tribulation false prophets will join the false christs (v. 5) in seeking to deceive people about God. They will persuasively teach doctrines that seem true and godly but are, in fact, false and satanic. The end time will be filled not only with overt evil such as the world has never seen before but also with false religion as never seen before. Until the very end, Satan will continue to use the guise of an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).

From Revelation 17 it becomes clear that false religions, here symbolized by the great harlot of Babylon, will flourish. The figure of a prostitute is used no doubt because the world religious system will prostitute itself, seeking by counterfeit gospels and other means to keep people from the true gospel and salvation. Despite their outward differences, the religions of that day will have one trait in common: hatred for the people of God, the true and purified brothers and sisters of Christ.

It is interesting that a characteristic of end-time false religion will be “sorceries” (Rev. 9:21), which translates pharmakia, from which we get the word pharmacy. Both the ancient Greek and the modern English terms relate to the ingestion of drugs. The use of mind-altering drugs was common in many ancient pagan religions, and in light of the modern epidemic of drug abuse and addiction, it would be surprising if the sorceries of the end time did not include the use of narcotics and hallucinogens.

SIN WILL BE TOO ATTRACTIVE

And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved. (24:12-13)

A third cause of defection will be the love of lawlessness, which, as it is increased, will cause most people’s love for righteousness, truth, and the things of God to grow cold.

Although end-time lawlessness will certainly include disregard for human laws, it will be manifested most vehemently in increased disregard for God’s law. Evil will multiply so rapidly and unashamedly that many people who are initially drawn to the gospel will turn away from it because of the multiplied enticements of sin.

The lawlessness will be diabolically aggressive and unabashed. Rather than trying to hide their sins, people will flaunt them, and such gross evil will draw many people, including some professed believers, away from whatever interest in the things of God they may once have had.

Describing the same period Jesus is talking about here, Paul warned,

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these. (2 Tim. 3:1-5)

Global violence, immorality, lewdness, selfish desire, and every other moral vice will run rampant as unbridled sin expresses itself. Men will be engulfed in a tidal wave of corruption and they will glory in it.

But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved, Jesus said. It is not that a person’s endurance will produce salvation but that his endurance will be a Spirit-empowered product and proof of the reality that he is saved. Neither the high cost of discipleship nor the deception of false prophets nor the enticement of sin will cause true believers to renounce Christ, because He Himself will protect them from defection.

Endurance is always a mark of salvation. “You will be hated by all on account of My name,” Jesus said, “but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved” (Matt. 10:22; cf. Luke 21:19). The person who endures in faith whatever hardship or persecution may come to him because of his relationship to Christ demonstrates that He belongs to Christ, and Christ assures that person that he shall be saved. He will eventually be delivered out of the present evil system of lawlessness and ungodliness into God’s eternal kingdom of righteousness.

The perseverance of the saints in faith is a very basic element of salvation teaching in the New Testament. It states that people who are genuinely saved do not depart from the faith (see John 8:31; 1 Cor. 15:1-2; Col. 1:21-23; Heb. 2:1-3; 3:14; 4:14; 6:11-12; 10:39; 12:14; James 1:2-4).

Reference to salvation in the future tense in such passages as the ones just cited does not indicate its beginning but its completion. Endurance cannot initiate salvation any more than can any other human effort. But it does give evidence of the spiritual life that resides in the believer and is also a reminder to him that “He who began a good work in [him] will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6; cf. John 10:27-29; Rom. 5:8-10; 2 Tim. 1:12; Heb. 7:25; 1 Pet. 1:5; Jude 24).

The one who endures to the end is the overcomer, the beloved child of God who does not fear suffering or death and who will be given the crown of life and will “not be hurt by the second death” (Rev. 2:10-11). Faith that perseveres is faith endowed and sustained by the indwelling Holy Spirit of Christ.

The enduring saints of the end times will be

the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes. (Rev. 7:14-17)

DECLARATION OF THE GOSPEL TO THE WHOLE WORLD

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come. (24:14)

The sixth and last birth pain to indicate that the end time is near will be the worldwide declaration of the gospel to a degree never yet seen. Before the Lord Himself appears, this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations.

Despite the deception of false christs and false teachers, the unparalleled warfare and pestilence and disaster, the fierce persecution of the saints, and the defection of false believers, the gospel of Christ’s kingdom will continue to be proclaimed. Despite the Antichrist’s tyrannical rule and hell’s belching out its demons to wreak havoc on earth, the Lord Jesus Christ will not be without witness.

Just before the bowl judgments are poured out and the final great holocaust begins, and just before the increasingly rapid birth pains issue in the kingdom, God will supernaturally present the gospel to every person on earth. He will send an angel with “an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people,” saying, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters” (Rev. 14:6-7).

That will be the final and total evangelization of the world, miraculously proclaimed from heaven. After that proclamation man’s day will be finished, his rebellion will be over, and his opportunity for salvation will be over, because then the end shall come.