And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky…Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures…Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind…Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Genesis 1:14, 20, 24, 26 NRSV.

You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. Psalm 18:28.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:1, 4.

Our chapter, Matthew 24, finds the disciples, and by extension, us, marveling at the permanence of structures we have come to depend upon. Jesus left the temple and was walking away when His disciples came up to Him to call His attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” He asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” v. 1-2. That must have gotten through to them for then they asked when that will be and what would be the sign of His coming and the sign of the end of the age, v. 3-4. And Jesus warns them against signs. Instead, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus, the Son. Jesus answered, “Watch out that no one deceive you. For many will come in My name, claiming ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of Me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” v. 4-14. Jesus never promised an easy way because this world is broken and in its brokenness people turn to violence and hate. We see that today. “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel (Dan. 9:27, 11:31, 12:11) – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains…How dreadful it will be in those days…For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again.” v. 15-16, 19, 21. (In the notes below it said that Daniel’s prophecy came true in 168 B.C. when Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed a pig to Zeus on the sacred temple altar; and Titus the Roman emperor placed an idol on the site of the burned temple after destroying Jerusalem in 70 A.D.; and that the antichrist will set up an image of himself and order everyone to worship it (2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 13:14, 15)…abominations all that mock God.) How bad will it get? “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There He is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time.” v. 22-24. So how would people know when Jesus, the Son, returns? “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. Immediately after the distress of those days ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ (Isaiah 13:10, 34:4). Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the people of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other….Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.” v. 27-35. Just 40 years later the destruction of Jerusalem was an awful event of horror and suffering. And Jesus tells them that even as in the days of Noah, it will be, right up until the end. People in Noah’s day were marrying, eating and drinking…and also, in Noah’s days, the evil was so bad that God put an end to humanity except for Noah and his family, 36-41. The rest of the chapter describes what the faithful should be doing because we don’t know when that time will be when the Son returns, but He will return and the whole world living at that time will know. What about our times that we are living in now?

Imagine hearing this directly from Jesus, sitting on the Mount of Olives with Him. Everything they thought they knew about the Messiah and life was being turned upside down. And they knew now that He would be leaving them soon. And after He died and ascended to be with the Father would be the time of ‘not yet’ before Jesus returns. The disciples were and all of us are living in that time now. And today we are living in times that are shaking up everything we thought was stable but is proving to be shifting sand. Only with Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, are we on solid rock that is God’s truth, and that will never fall. Heaven and earth will pass away…but My words will never pass away. From the Beginning…God speaks. Can we listen to Him? Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. What love will not grow cold? For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through HIm. John 3:16-17. Jesus gives us the way to eternal life with Creator God. And He gave warnings about not trusting God. I don’t know how all of that will play out at the end, or how it will be for those who choose to turn away, or even how it will be for the faithful because there will be the tribulations of living in a world that chooses not to live by God’s will. But this I do know: The Lord is my Shepherd…I shall not be in want even as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me…Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. All else is shifting sand.