After Christ’s primary warning about religious apostasy (Matt. 24:4-5), He now turns His focus upon geopolitical events. Jesus says, "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" (Matt. 24:6-8). Since we have previously seen that verses 4–14 refer to the first half of the tribulation, it follows that these events will occur during that time, and will correspond with the seal judgments of Revelation 6...
Matthew 24:6 says, "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." Previously I dealt with the first half of this verse, but the second half makes an important statement...
Now that I have looked into the first half of Matthew 24:7, I will consider the second half of the verse. The passage says, "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" (Matt. 24:7-8). So what about famines and earthquakes? ...
After painting a global scenario, Jesus now turns to personal consequences that will take place during the seventieth-week of Daniel, known as the tribulation. In fact Christ uses the word "tribulation" for the first time in His discourse. There are a number of issues that arise from this passage as it relates to the different interpretative approaches to our Lord’s discourse...
Jesus is progressing through His description of the first half of the tribulation, building toward the middle of the seven-year period of verse 15. In this section our Lord describes the spiritual state of the Jews within the land of Israel (Matt. 24:10-13). Their spirituality is not good, from God’s perspective...