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sign like that one of a cross in the sky, or a sound of any trumpet,
or any brilliant light, or any spaceship, or some out of common
meteorological event. The sign of the Son of Man, as it was with
the sign of Jonah, refers to the same mentioned person —that is, to
Jesus, the Messiah! Again, Jesus, as Jonah, would be A SIGN. This
concept must be kept in your mind: ¡Jesus himself would be a
SIGN for a perverse generation that would see His parousia and
the end of the age"! Later on we will see how Jesus will be useful
as a SIGN for a malignant generation.
In verses 4-6 of Matthew 24 Jesus says that before his return, and
of the end of the world, many false Christs would say that they
are the promised Messiah, or the Christ incarnated in them.
Examples of these are many through the centuries. Recently we
can mention Jim Jones who died in Guyana with his church, and
David Koresh, who died with 80 of his followers in Waco, Texas.
Right now, new false leaders (as Reverend Moon) are passing
themselves off as the Messiah, and are deceiving a great number
of sincere followers (v.5). Also Jesus talked about wars and
rumors of wars (v.6), but these wars would not be the sign of the
end! (v.6) At this point Jesus does not give us a single or specific
sign of the end of the age. In verses 7-14 the Lord Jesus clearly
prophesied the international conflicts (v.7). Then Jesus talked
about the great tribulation that will come to his chosen because
of his name (v.9), and the surging of false prophets or fraudulent
teachers eager for money and power (v.11). In verse 14 Jesus
announced that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all
over the world as a testimony ... and then the end will come. But
even here we do not have the UNIQUE or singular SIGN that was
requested by the disciples about His coming and the end of the
world. Many Christians mix up these signs of the proximity of His
coming as if it were proof of his real coming. Being about to come
does not mean that His coming already took place. Another group
of Christians believe that the sign is really a set of signs. But this
idea is an error! The disciples are asking Jesus for A sign, and
Jesus will openly and immediately reveal it to them without
evasiveness.
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in the deserts and rooms (Notice: Not from heaven, or
“vertically”, of up- down), and whom we must not believe.
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Christians, may be snatched away by Him to the clouds to meet
Him (read Again 1 Thess. 4:16,17— see the word meet of verse 17).
Summary:
In Matthew 24:3, the disciples asked Jesus for a single sign that
would indicate to them His coming from heaven and the end of
the world, and, of course, the Lord Jesus will give them very
clearly and without evasiveness that single sign in verse 30.
The other supposed signs of the verses 4-29 are events that will be
presented before His glorious coming, and that they would
become more and more notorious and generalized in the measure
that Christ's coming came closer, as the pains of a pregnant
woman's childbirth. To affirm that wars —including that of the Jews
with the Romans— and the rumors of wars, were a sign of Jesus'
arrival in glory and in His kingdom in 70 A.D, is to twist what the
same Christ taught us concerning His return. Jesus said in
Matthew 24:6 that wars, and rumors of wars, would not indicate
the end of the era or His second coming but His proximity (Luke
21:9—“for all this must take place first, but the end will not come
immediately”). So the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place
by the war of the Jews with the Romans, was not the sign of
Christ's second coming and the end of the age. Jesus never said
that the destruction of Jerusalem would be the sign of His
paruosia, or second coming.
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The singular Sign that Jesus left us of His real parousia, or second
coming, is His personal descending, coming with the celestial
clouds in power and great glory. The false Christ have appeared
"horizontally" from among men in the deserts and rooms. On the
other hand, the true Messiah will come "vertically;" that is, from
above downwards, visibly, personally (the same risen human Jesus)
from the clouds of heaven with the angels in His power. These
specifications given by Jesus Himself and later by the angels for
the parousia, were never mentioned by Josephus in his writings
for his supposed coming in 70 AD.