Matthew 24

 ¹ And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

² And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

³ And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

The disciples are asking 3 questions. 1. When shall these things be. 2. What are the signs of thy coming. 3. What are the signs of the end of the world. Take note of the very first thing Jesus says, because this is vital.

⁴ And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

The beginning of the great tribulation starts when Jesus removes the first seal and the White horse is released. This is also where Jesus begins this teaching to his disciples…. with a warning not to be deceived.
REVELATION 6:2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

The white horse- The antichrist. He’s coming forth conquering and to conquer. His goal is to murder you and his mission is to deceive everyone…. change the truth into a lie… Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Jesus says, TAKE HEED THAT NO MAN DECEIVE YOU! This is the first statement because the times Jesus is talking about will be a massive time of deception that will sweep over the earth and take out person after person EVEN CHRISTIANS who will be led away from sound doctrine. If you don’t get this part right, all that other stuff doesn’t matter because you will be lost.
Right now, with the internet and the flow of information that is available 24 hours a day, people can research just about anything. Here’s the problem, there is MORE misinformation out there than there is truth. Then, you have people who want to control the flow of information and what you’re able to see and what you not… they do this by classifying information at their discretion as true or false, then they block or label the information they call false so that you can’t access it easily. This is also invading the Christians and the Church…. there is so much going on that the spirit of confusion is just laying in wait for Christians. We see division and anger and people inciting anger in others. Theres a reason the bible says in Ephesians 4:26-32 ²⁶ Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:²⁷ Neither give place to the devil.
If we give the devil even an inch of space in our hearts for hatred, our love will die, and we become open to deception and every evil work.

⁵ For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

FOR MANY SHALL COME IN MY NAME- So this means there will not be a single source of deception. One of the most common misconceptions about the Antichrist is that he is going to pretend to be Jesus and people will believe him. I don’t think that is how he will come at all, I think he is going to come as a challenger to God’s authority and will attempt to upstage Jesus and get the world to bow down at his feet. So this warning about many coming in Jesus’s name isn’t the actual antichrist…. but CHRISTIAN DECEIVERS. Professing Christians with another doctrine. We see it now… with prosperity doctrines…. being that their the most promonent doctrine is properity now….and the focus on treasures here on earth instead of laying up treasure in heaven….there is also those that use the new age doctrines of manifesting. And, those that change the word so they can continue in their sin…there are so many religions that have false core doctrines … all coming in the name of Jesus and all of them will put you squarely in position of vulnerablity to the ultimate deceiver, the antichrist. Any departure from sound doctrine leads to deception. 1 Timothy 4:3-4 ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;⁴ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
What this verse tells me is we can guard against this by not following doctrine because it fits what we want to believe, but instead follow the word and crucify the flesh so our walk fits the word. The deception doesn’t happen to people who aren’t volunteering through compromise… remember, compromise is the Petri Dish of deception. While it would also be nice to believe we can all determine in ourselves not to let this happen… that isn’t entirely all we need to do. What we can do is determine to follow Jesus and pray that the Lord keep us from evil… from a sincere heart…. then obey the Lord even when it means we have to deny the flesh. NEVER get puffed up in pride or arrogance…and remember we are here by GRACE and MERCY…. undeserved and gifted to us by God though his son Jesus.

The way people are going to be led away is by deception. FIRST, we must have the oil of intimacy and know Jesus as our Savior and Lord… we must have AND MAINTAIN a close relationship with him. When Jesus has become real to us, when we have learned to follow his voice…. when we know his word and how to rightly divide the word of truth, we are not going to be deceived by another doctrine or lie UNLESS we allow our relationship with Jesus to grow cold. Knowledge and Wisdom in the word of God and the infilling of the Holy Spirit guiding us is going to be our defense. On these things, the armor of salvation is built. Knowledge in the word is knowing what the word says, Wisdom in the word is knowing how the word is applied to our lives and situations…. the Holy Spirit teaches us both and brings it all to our remembrance as well as guides us in the spirit. WE MUST LIVE OUR LIVES IN THIS AT ALL TIMES…. And remember the helmet of Salvation… it’s on your head for a reason… because the body follows the head…. Keep Jesus as the Lord of your life with no compromises. The world is a place of compromise, but remember… you are not of this world. As I said, compromise is the petri dish for deception. (James 1:14 ¹⁴ But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.)

⁶ 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.

We are going to hear of rumors of wars and evil things going on… and things being exposed for their corrupt nature…. all kinds of things like this, but remember, Jesus already covered all of it and warned us about it then he said…. see that you’re not troubled. That’s an action… it’s not something we can will into existence, we have to actively go after it. We are to keep up on what is going on around us… but do it from the lens of the Word. The Word informs us…. BUT IT LEAVES US WITH HOPE…. and that is where we need to be with this… holding on to hope. So when we hear of wars, we need to say, “Jesus told me about that. Praise God, I will not worry, I will trust in Jesus.”

⁷ For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

⁸ All these are the beginning of sorrows.

The word sorrow comes from the original greek word, OdinOn…. meaning pangs as in birth pains. This sentence tells an entire story because of the use of that particular word. The story is of a woman in beginning labor. She is going to be giving birth to something. We have seen this same analogy being used in Revelations 12:1&2 ¹And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:² And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
In the book of Revelation this woman is Israel and she is divinely protected from the antichrist. That’s not to say there won’t be times of trouble, but the Lord will deliver Israel.

⁹ Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.

This isn’t a climate that occurs suddenly… back when I was a younger Christian I had an idea that people were going to be following this one huge false Jesus who will tell them we Christians are all evil because we refuse to agree to him being Jesus and all the deceived would be mad at Christians for this and begin killing us or ratting us out so we are killed. In truth, this probably looks more like what we see today… a growing hatred for Christians who are standing up against homosexuality, child grooming and abuse, abortion and a wide variety of issues with the woke agenda. There is a Christian content creator who checked out the book titled, “This Book Is Gay” and read it so she could do an informative video for others who didn’t want to read the book for themselves…. like she gave a synopsis of the chapters and in some cases read directly from the book. One chapter contained information for gay kids to use in arguements against Christians who tell them what they are doing is a sin. The Author gave verse from the bible that the child could use against Christians who tell them that homosexuality is a sin. She read some of the verses… of course none of the ones she read show where the Bible condones the behavior…. instead it contained accusations of the Christians breaking Gods law… so a tactic of putting the Christian on the defense. Trouble was, the author doesn’t know the word. All of those scriptures they used were commanded of the Jews under the law…. and no longer apply and never applied to Christians that are Gentiles. What stands out about it though, isn’t that they want to prove God approves of their sinful lifestyle… it was just their attack on Christians values…. and was teaching the kids that read this that Christians were hypocrites. It was cultivating contempt and hatred. The activist homosexuals that confront conservative Christians on social media have an absolute hatred of Christianity …. of course not every single one, but many of them. So the hatred for Christians is being cultivated there and in other places like radical Islamic communities where Christians are being put to death under blasphemy laws and in Korea where they just sentenced a 2 year old to life in prison because his parents had a bible. So the hatred of Christians is and will be coming from many directions and it would not surprise me if these groups united eventually to put Christians to death. This intolerace for Jesus is being cultivated now… and has been for years. Wokism is the largest move towards it in the US at this moment. This is the same group promoting tolerance for themselves, but not for others.

¹⁰ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

Did Jesus use the word OFFENDED? “Offended” is the woke mantra. We are seeing all of this unfold right now. Liberal colleges are cranking out “offended” young people by the thousands… all woke and hating anything conservative and especially anything CHRISTIAN. There are so many areas where people are being offended right now, people no longer voice their opinions for fear of offending a protected class. Laws are even being put on the books to criminalize offending people in these protected classes… like for things like using the wrong pronoun.

¹¹ And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

This is not the same as the warning in verse 5, this one is different. In times of trouble people start looking for answers and comfort. HEAR WHAT I’M SAYING…..this is why we have to have a close intimate relationship with Jesus RIGHT NOW… before all of this comes on us with full force… we need to know this is coming and be ready for it… so we can stay right with Jesus… walk uprightly…. hold on to the peace of God… and be confident in our salvation. The spiritually empty will seek a sign and comfort. They will be ripe and ready for a false prophet to tickel their ears with lies. Weak and desparate people will grab at anything that looks like a solution to their misery.

¹² And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

People do some of the most horrific things when they are starved.

¹³ But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

So all of these things are coming at everyone from all directions…. and from many different places…. and as times goes on, it gets worse and worse. Look at the covid lock downs… see how fast the food and supplies left the shelves and our lives changed. You know, a lot of people look at that as some sort of test run for the government or whatever…. but you know that can’t actually be proven beyond a doubt and it doesn’t matter…. the take away from that for me is how fragile our worlds are and how quickly normal life became something else. People were losing it because of mask and vaccines and being locked down etc… it showed us something about ourselves…. that we are not ready for the time of great testing if we were so shaken by those events. The covid fiascal is going to seems like a minor thing when compared to what is coming in the tribulation…. and during covid we had people fighting like animals over mask and treating one another horribly. We need to take a lesson from it.

To be continued.