Watchers on the Wall Alert!
“When you see all these things,” Jesus said. It was a warning from the Creator of all that is. We’re to be especially alert, He was saying, when certain things come into view. We—those who name Christ as Lord—should, individually, serve as watchers on the wall while we observe biblically prophetic progression.
But Jesus gave one word that, to this generation of those who “watch,” should add profound emphasis to Christ’s command. Jesus, God Himself, said God’s children should “look up and lift our heads” when we see certain things “begin” to become observable during our time on Earth. Here are the words of this important command from the Lord Jesus:
“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
Jesus was speaking to His immediate disciples—the men who followed him throughout His ministry. He was speaking to just a few of them on that day some two thousand years ago. However, He was also speaking, in the prophetic sense, to those who would be alive during some future time to witness things those men on the Mount of Olives asked Him about that day.
Jesus dumbfounded them by saying the beautiful Temple they were looking at on Moriah would be destroyed. He further implied the consummation of things of the earth.
They said:
“Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3b).
Jesus, the greatest of all prophets—because He is omniscient and eternal and knows the end from the beginning—gave His immediate disciples as well as us today the answer to the windup of this quickly fleeting Age of Grace (Church Age).
The Lord gave a profound commission that day: Recognize when “these things begin to come to pass.”
God in the flesh (the Second Person of the Godhead, both God and Man) gave specific things to look for. I am convinced that this is the generation that will be part of the consummation of the age He described.
Things we see happening are prophetic developments. This is what my friend, the late Chuck Missler, used to say is “the time of the signs.” If Chuck were still on Earth today, his excitement would no doubt be uncontrollable considering the matters of prophetic import now unfolding.
Jesus Gives Signs
The Lord answered His disciples on Olivet (and us, now) about when to look up for Him (our redemption) because He would be drawing very near. That is, He would be about to call to the Church (all believers in Him for salvation/redemption)
Signals the Lord gave are at this moment blazing across our headlines.
Here is Christ’s answer to the disciples’ questions:
“Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:4-8).
Deceivers
We don’t have to look very hard to see that deceivers and deception are in every direction. Religiously, many are on the scene giving false teaching—all proclaiming they have (come in the name of) Christ. But many deny the power of Christ (His deity). This fits Paul’s “perilous times” prophecy (2 Timothy chapter 3).
Wars and Rumors of Wars
There are still living members of forces who fought in the greatest war of all history to this point. World War II is proof that horrific wars have “begun” to happen, thus fitting Jesus’ warning of what to look for at the end of the age. And rumors of wars, as we easily observe, are there to “watch.” The greatest fear is of world-ending nuclear war, thus end-times cries of “peace and safety” fill our headlines daily.
Nation against Nation
The word for “nation” here, as we’ve looked at many times, is the Greek Word ethnos, meaning “ethnic.”
Even now, many wars around the world are raging, involving ethnic differences. Ethnic hatreds are at the center of Middle East wars and rumors of wars. The conflict between Israel and its neighbors has been centered in ethnic differences for thousands of years.
Even in the United States, there are ethnic conflicts, as we saw in the George Floyd death, and even within sports, such as the attacks of some women against others in the Women’s National Basketball Association.
Famines, Pestilences, and Earthquakes
We’ve long seen films of children with their stomachs distended because of starvation as appeals are made to feed the hungry in Africa and other places.
The COVID matter, as a pestilence, literally shut down the world’s top economic nation to some extent. Its ramifications still reverberate throughout the world; again, much involved is steeped in deception for the purposes of the love of money and power.
Great, cataclysmic earthquakes are reported almost daily, with 7.0 or higher on the Richter Scale becoming more the norm than the aberration. Witness: the recent 7.4 earthquake in Colombia.
Naysayers charge that this has always been the condition of humankind; it’s just that now these things can be reported instantaneously across the world. That might be true to an extent, but could the Lord Jesus not have known of the prolific distribution of information that would be available at the end of the age?
As a matter of fact, yes; He could have such knowledge when He spoke on the Mount of Olives that day two millennia ago.
Daniel the prophet was given a message from the throne room of God, where certainly Jesus in His preincarnate form resided when the message to Daniel was sent to the prophet:
“O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4).
So, Jesus wants the watchers to be informed of the critical hour so near the time of His return so God’s message of grace—the salvation offered to all fallen humankind—can be put forth as a critical alert.
Be assured: The things we’ve begun to see come to pass—described by our Lord two thousand years ago and recorded for us today—are not coincidental. There is no such Word as “coincidence” in God’s prophetic vocabulary.
It is incumbent upon us, no matter our status in the world’s activities as we live our given increments of time, to consider our number one job to be watching in these quickly passing days. Our witness for Christ is our top priority!
“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:32-37).
—Terry
Tribulation Technology and Smartphones??
As students of Bible prophecy, we are aware of how modern technology points us to the fulfillment of several Tribulation events. For example, in Revelation 11:9 we learn that after the antichrist kills the two witnesses, people from all over the world will “gaze at their dead bodies.” Television, satellites, and 24/7 news networks explain how it’s possible for people all over the world to watch events unfold on the streets of Jerusalem in real time. They will also be able to view this morbid scene on other electronic devices any time they wish to do so.
When it comes to one person controlling all the buying and selling worldwide, just twenty-five years ago I imagined it would happen through an exceedingly large number of participants in every nation who would willingly enforce the dictates of the antichrist. Today, AI, gigantic databases, data centers, and the coming central bank digital currencies not only make it possible, but also likely. The elites already tell us that they plan to use this technology to both monitor and control how people spend their money.
During the past couple of months, I have spent many hours studying Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:15-18 where He refers to the defilement of the temple at the midpoint of the Tribulation. Although there are similarities to His words in Luke 21:20-25, where He predicts the destruction of the temple in AD 70, it cannot be the same event as the “abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel” (Daniel 9:27, 12:11). The significant differences in the texts verify that these passages refer to different and rather distinct events. One happened in the distant past; one awaits a still future fulfillment.
In both texts, Jesus warns the Jewish people that what they “see” will prompt them to the presence of imminent danger. In Luke 21:20, it’s the sight of “Jerusalem surrounded by armies” that alerts the people to the perils that lie ahead for them, such as happened in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which led to a time of intense persecution of the Jews.
In Matthew 24:15-16, the spectacle of impending peril is far different; there the Lord begins His warning with these words, “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” In this text, it’s the sight of the one we know as the antichrist, the “man of lawlessness” inside the “holy place” of the temple that alerts the Jews to danger. Despite this occurring within a small enclosure in the temple building, the Jews will “see” it take place and know to immediately flee.
But what makes this far more interesting is the examples of places where Jesus says they will observe the defilement of the temple’s holy of holies. Some will be on the housetops when they see the “abomination” take place, while others will be in the fields when they see it (Matthew 24:17-18). The Lord is not telling them to instantly flee when they hear reports about the defilement from someone running to tell them about it or read about it the next morning; it’s when they watch it happen in real time.
It was not until several weeks ago that it occurred to me that Jesus was implying that people working outside in the fields would somehow witness the abomination as it happens and know to flee without even picking up their nearby coat. The same is true with people on rooftops; they will see it take place and recognize the necessity to immediately run for their lives. Does this not imply smartphone technology or at least some other modern technology?
How else would it be possible for those in the fields to “see” it happen? And lest one thinks that rooftops belong only to the first century AD Jerusalem, I discovered that many of its homes today also have outdoor space on their roofs. It’s more common in the “for sale” listings of higher-priced houses in Jerusalem, but it’s a reality, nonetheless.
The scoffers of our day claim that we interpret prophecy with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. In other words, they argue that the news of our day determines what we believe about Bible prophecy. However, Jesus instructed us to watch for His coming, which necessitates evaluating current events in the light of what Scripture says about the last days. Might that also include recognizing the role that modern technology will play in the fulfillment of Bible prophecy? I think so.
It’s our understanding of God’s Word that alerts us to the season in which we live. Just as the cues Jesus gave to the Jews that enabled them to recognize imminent danger, so He has also told us what to watch for as we see the day approaching. Just as with Israel, the Lord not only warns us about what is coming, but also provides us with signs so that we might watch and know what lies ahead for us.
And today, what we see screams with the message that He’s coming very soon to take us to the places He’s preparing for us.
-Jonathan