Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; let him who is on the housetop not go down to get the things out that are in his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to get his cloak. But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babes in those days! But pray that your flight may not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath; for then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short. 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. Behold, I have told you in advance. If therefore they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go forth, or, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. (24:16-28)

Perhaps no subject in Scripture is more intriguing than the second coming of Jesus Christ, and none should be more motivating to the believer and the unbeliever alike. “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord,” Paul declared, “we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11). Realizing that Christ will one day come in terrible judgment, the sensible unbeliever should be motivated to repent and receive Him as Lord and Savior. The obedient Christian will be motivated to faithfully present the gospel to unbelievers in order that they might have the opportunity to be saved. The faithful Christian is also motivated by the reward he will receive when His Lord returns, and with Paul he has the “ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” (v. 9).

In Matthew 24:16-28 Jesus continues to describe some of the perils that will accompany His return to establish His earthly millennial reign. But before giving those additional signs of His coming, He tells all Jews and all believing Gentiles who are living in Judea during the Tribulation what their response to the abomination of desolation should be.

THE RESPONSE

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; let him who is on the housetop not go down to get the things out that are in his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to get his cloak. But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babes in those days! But pray that your flight may not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath; (24:16-20)

As mentioned previously, the abomination of desolation (see v. 15) will precipitate the first series of dangers and catastrophes that Jesus compared to birth pains (vv. 4-14). When the Antichrist desecrates the restored Jerusalem Temple and demands that all the world worship him as God, the second three and a half years of the Tribulation, called the Great Tribulation (see v. 21), will begin. Then, Jesus said, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. That statement is a warning of the severity of the holocaust to come and an exhortation to flee from it.

Because of their proximity to the profaned Temple headquarters of the Antichrist in Jerusalem, those who are in Judea will be in the greatest and most immediate danger from that extremely powerful and malevolent agent of Satan. Although everyone on earth will be subject to his tyranny, the Antichrist’s supreme fury will be vented against Jews, regardless of their religious persuasion or lack of it, and also against all Christians. Jewish Christians will be in the greatest jeopardy of all, being doubly despised by Satan’s forces.

Since God first called and made His eternal covenant with Abraham, Satan has sought to destroy God’s chosen people, the Jews, and their God-ordained nation of Israel. To have destroyed the Jews would have been to destroy God’s redemptive plan for mankind, because “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). To have eliminated the Jews before Jesus was born would have broken the line of promise and thwarted the birth and therefore the redemptive ministry of the Messiah, who had to be a descendant of Abraham and of David. Having failed at that, however, Satan still seeks to destroy individual Jews in order to prevent Christ’s ultimate redemption of them and to destroy Israel as a nation in order to prevent its restoration under His divine rule. It must be added that God has allowed Satan some success in his attacks on Jews. Because of their covenant violation, unbelief, and apostasy, Satan has sometimes actually acted as God’s executioner to punish them.

Because they will refuse to worship him and especially because they belong to God, the Antichrist will also unleash exceptional fury against those who come to believe in Jesus during the last days. As already noted, those nearest Jerusalem will be in the severest and most immediate danger.

Phueg (flee) is related to the English term fugitive, a person who takes flight in order to escape danger. The only hope will be to run for safety, symbolized in the exhortation to flee Judea as quickly as possible and take refuge in the mountains.

From Zechariah we learn that not every Jew will be successful in the attempt to escape. “ ‘And it will come about in all the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘that two parts in it will be cut off and perish; but the third will be left in it. And I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested’” (Zech. 13:8-9a). When the Antichrist moves against the Jews of Judea and other parts of Palestine, he will slaughter millions of them, apparently in a short period of time. That slaughter will also be a divine purging of the rebel Jews and the third that are left are the saved, of whom the Lord says, “They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God’ ” (v. 9b). The holocaust of that day will surpass every other catastrophe that has “occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall” (Matt. 24:21). As noted in the previous chapter, the massacres of Jews by the Romans in A.D. 70 and by the Nazis during the World War II will pale by comparison. Two out of every three Jews in the Holy Land will die under the fury of Satan as he enacts the judgment of God on the rebels of the Jewish nation.

Many Christians will also be slaughtered, not as an act of God’s judgment but in acts of ungodly persecution. When the fifth seal of judgment was broken, John “saw underneath 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?’ ” (Rev. 6:9-10). Those martyred saints will wonder when the carnage of their brothers and sisters will stop and God will judge and punish their murderers. In response to their cry, “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” (v. 11). Through the Antichrist and his other agents, both human and demon, Satan will make all-out war on the saints, butchering all he can find (Rev. 13:7) until his evil hosts are “drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” (17:6).

For the saved Jews there will be divine help in fleeing and hiding. John saw Israel, the woman who “gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron,” flee “into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she might be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.” The apostle then saw the archangel “Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Rev. 12:5-9). The 1,260 days is equivalent to three and a half years, the second half of the seven-year Tribulation. During that Great Tribulation, God will provide a place of refuge for those of His people who escape the Antichrist’s onslaught.

They will succeed in their flight to the mountains, probably to the east and south of Jerusalem, perhaps to the cliff caves around the Dead Sea and in the hills of Moab and Edom. John reports that “the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, in order that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent” (Rev. 12:14). Some modern commentators have suggested that “the great eagle” represents El Al, the official Israeli airline. But it seems more likely that the eagle represents Michael himself, by whose power God’s people will be transported to safety.

Our Lord continues the call for urgency, stressing the need for immediate flight by insisting that, for example, a person who is on the housetop should not even go down to get the things out that are in his house. Most Palestinian houses of Jesus’ day had outside stairways leading to the housetop, where the family often went in the evening to relax and cool off from the work and heat of the day. The person who happens to be on his roof when he hears of the abomination of desolation should not waste even the few minutes required to go back into the house to retrieve a few precious things to take with him into the mountains. No material possession will be worth the risk of the slightest delay. Nor should a person turn back to get his cloak. If he is working on the far side of a field and has left his cloak in the house or on a fence some distance away, he should leave it there and run.

That will not be the time even for taking a stand for Christ but only for fleeing into His arms, as it were. The time for testimony will be past and, by the word of the Lord Himself, believers’ only sensible option will be flight.

It will be an especially tragic and burdensome time for pregnant women, those who are with child, and nursing mothers with small babes. Women in such conditions will not be able to move fast and will therefore be at greater risk of being captured and killed. An even more horrible prospect, however, will be that of having their unborn child slashed in the womb and of their tiny babes dashed to pieces before their eyes. Both of those heinous practices were common among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians and are precisely the judgment that rebellious Israel was promised through Hosea (13:16).

It was by the massacre of hundreds of male Hebrew babies that Satan convinced Pharaoh he could destroy the Israelites in Egypt and by which he convinced Herod he could destroy the Christ child. The Antichrist apparently will employ the same hellish activities during the Great Tribulation. With the Holy Spirit removed and the church raptured, the malevolence of Satan will be unrestrained and untempered.

Although Palestinian winters are mild compared to those in many parts of the world, even slightly inclement weather could be a hindrance when the Antichrist begins his final aggression against God’s people. Therefore Jesus said, Pray that your flight may not be in the winter.

Those seeking to escape should also pray that they will not have to flee on the Sabbath, when legalistic Jews who are not fleeing might try to stone or otherwise impede those whom they believe to be profaning the Sabbath—just as their forefathers had sought to stone Jesus for breaking their Sabbath traditions.

Jesus’ point was that no possession would be worth the risk of retrieving and no hindrance could be considered small. Because of the imminent unmatched terror, single-minded, undeterred flight will be the only order of the day.

THE PERILS

for then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short. 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. Behold, I have told you in advance. If therefore they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go forth, or, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. (24:21-28)

Jesus here identifies three more signs of His return, signs that will occur immediately after the abomination of desolation and that will warrant fast flight into the mountains. Those signs will be: severe calamity (vv. 16-22), subtle confusion (vv. 23-27), and sinful corruption (v. 28).

SEVERE CALAMITY

for then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short. (24:21-22)

The abomination of desolation will mark the beginning of the great tribulation, the last three and one half years before Christ appears to rule the world from His throne in Jerusalem. That great tribulation will be such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. No time or event in the history of Israel fits the description of the holocaust Jesus is here speaking of. The horrifying time is further described in some detail in Revelation 6-16, where the seal, trumpet, and bowl judgments exhibit the escalating intensity of God’s wrath upon sinful, rebellious mankind. Both the books of Revelation and of Daniel make clear that the Antichrist will tyrannize the world for “a time, times, and half a time” (Dan. 7:25; 12:7; Rev. 12:14), that is, a year, two years, and a half year, or three and one half years (Rev. 11:2;13:5). Clearly, the events described by our Lord, by Daniel, and by John must refer to the same great holocaust at the end time, just before the millennial kingdom is established on earth.

God’s message for Israel is that things are going to get immeasurably worse before they become better. That nation and its people will suffer treachery, desecration of the rebuilt Temple, indescribable persecution, and brutal slaughter that will be totally unparalleled in history.

And unless those days had been cut short, Jesus went on to say, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short. Kolobo (cut short) can carry the idea of stopping instantly, and that could be the meaning in this context. Since the length of the Great Tribulation is repeatedly stated as being divinely ordained at three and one half years, its length could not be reduced without God’s contradicting His own Word. The idea would therefore be that God has predetermined that those days of calamity will stop short of total destruction.

But since Jesus spoke of those days rather than the more general eschatological phrase “that day,” it seems that His reference was probably to twenty-four-hour days. In that case, God will supernaturally shorten the daylight hours in order to give His fleeing people the added protection of more darkness.

When the sixth judgment seal is broken, there will be “a great earthquake; and the sun [will become] black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon [will become] like blood; and the stars of the sky [will fall] to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. And the sky [will be] split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up” (Rev. 6:12-14). During the fourth trumpet judgment “a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars [will be] 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” (8:12). During the fifth bowl judgment the kingdom of the beast will be darkened by God’s angel (16:10). At least three times during the Great Tribulation the heavenly bodies that give light to the earth will be radically altered in ways that will progressively reduce the daylight until the Antichrist’s forces are compelled to operate in total darkness. God will use that darkness for the sake of the elect, using it to hide them from their would-be destroyers.

The elect could represent the nation of Israel, which is often referred to in the Old Testament as God’s elect, or chosen, people (see, e.g., Isa. 45:4). It could also include those who become Christians during the Tribulation (see Rev. 17:14). Both applications seem appropriate, because God will preserve a redeemed remnant of the nation of Israel as well as some redeemed Gentiles. He will shorten the daylight hours so that the Antichrist cannot complete his massacre of Jews and saints.

It should be noted that this is the first use of the term elect in the New Testament, and through it Jesus introduced a new concept concerning those who belong to Him. They have been divinely chosen and called out as His own people and indeed His very own children. And when God chooses people for Himself, He will restructure the entire universe if that becomes necessary to protect them and to fulfill His promises concerning them. (For further discussion of election, see the author’s commentary on Ephesians, pp. 10-13.)

Obviously total darkness could not last very long. Not only would nothing grow but little work could be done, and temperatures all across the earth would rapidly drop to unendurable levels. But in that brief time, the anguish from darkness—added to the famine, pestilence, warfare, and other catastrophes—will become so acute that men will gnaw “their tongues because of pain” (Rev. 16:10).

SUBTLE CONFUSION

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. Behold, I have told you in advance. If therefore they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go forth, or, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. (24:23-27)

Those who heed Jesus’ advice to flee into the mountains and are protected by God from harm will also be especially vulnerable to false teaching and promises. Having left their homes with only the clothes on their backs, they will not have the least security of material possessions. Many of them will have left families and friends behind and will be strangers to each other.

It seems evident from Jesus’ warning here that false teachers will infiltrate the company of those who flee. Those false teachers will be Satan’s emissaries who hope to entice Jews and believers away from their refuge and into the hands of Antichrist. They will share his satanic desire to annihilate all Jews and all Christians.

Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), and since he first tempted Eve, one of his primary weapons has been deceit. As he has done many times in the past and will have already done many times during the Tribulation (see Matt. 24:5), Satan will inspire the appearance of false Christs. The refugees will hear such claims as, “Behold, here is the Christ,” or “There He is.” Some of the false teachers will claim Christ is in their own midst, and others will perhaps claim He is back in Jerusalem or elsewhere in Judea.

Those spurious religious leaders, the false Christs and false prophets, will even perform great signs and wonders, giving supernatural evidence to support their claims. They will mimic their leader, the Antichrist, who will demonstrate “all power and signs and false wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9). Those great signs and wonders will be so awesome and convincing that they would mislead, if possible, even the elect.

It is obvious from Jesus’ saying, if possible, that the Antichrist and his false Christs and prophets will not be able to deceive the elect. Satan has never been able to deceive Christians about the identity of their Lord. “My sheep hear My voice,” Jesus said, “and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:27-28). Once a person comes to know the true Christ through saving faith in Him, he can never be duped by anyone, including Satan himself, into acknowledging a counterfeit Christ.

The elect in that day will not be destroyed because God will sovereignly protect them by reordering the entire universe, and they will not be deceived because they will have the Spirit-inspired knowledge of the true Christ within them.

But those protected ones will nevertheless be under verbal assault. Satan will vigorously try to use the turmoil of the times to undermine the confidence of the refugees and to persuade them to follow a false Messiah, who would immediately betray them to the Antichrist once they were outside God’s sanctuary. With the world falling apart, the stars falling, the sun and moon being radically reduced in light, millions dying from disease and starvation, and thousands of their fellow countrymen having been mercilessly slaughtered, the refugees will be emotionally drained and utterly vulnerable to the subterfuge of the false Christ’s and prophets, were it not for God’s gracious provision.

The fugitives will have access to Jesus’ words recorded here. Behold, I have told you in advance, He said, speaking to them prophetically across the intervening centuries. If therefore they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go forth, or, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” do not believe them. “Beware of all claims about My identity or whereabouts,” He was saying. “Pay attention only to what I am teaching you now, not to anything else you will hear or see in that day, no matter how authentic and compelling the message and accompanying signs may seem to be.”

How, then, will those protected ones know when the true Lord really does appear to establish His kingdom? How will they distinguish His true coming from the many counterfeits? For just as the lightning comes from the east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be, Jesus assures them. His coming will not be stretched over a long period of time but will be quick, sudden, public, visible, universal, and unimaginably glorious. As the astonished disciples stood staring up into the sky after Jesus had ascended into the clouds, the two angels said to them, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). An angel said to John in his vision on Patmos, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him” (Rev. 1:7). Christ’s appearance not only will be unmistakable to those in hiding on that day but to every human being on earth, including His most implacable enemies.

For those who belong to Him, Christ’s coming will be marvelous deliverance, but for those who have resisted and opposed Him it will be the ultimate day of tragedy. “The kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, [will hide] themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they [will say] to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb’ ” (Rev. 6:15-16).

Until the Lord appears in that predicted and unquestionable way, those who are hiding should remain where they are. After the true Christ appears, however, His people and His enemies will exchange places, as it were. Those who had been hiding in the mountains and caves will be released to freedom and blessing, and their would-be captors and murderers will themselves seek refuge, as the righteous wrath of God replaces and punishes the evil wrath of man and of Satan.

SINFUL CORRUPTION

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. (24:28)

That statement was possibly a common proverb in Palestine, as it could be in many parts of the world. Even in highly civilized modern societies, vultures circling over the carcass of a dead animal are not an uncommon sight in the countryside, especially in remote areas.

By the end of the Great Tribulation, the world will have filled up its full measure of sin and will have spiritually decayed into a wretched and virtually lifeless carcass. As it lies like a dead animal in the wilderness, Christ will appear to make final disposition of that corpse through His righteous and terrible judgment.