Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 20, 2009 Matthew 24:1-14 “Signs of His Coming: “Gospel Preached to All Nations”

SI: This is the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

For many centuries it’s been the practice of the church to spend

these four Sundays before Christmas focusing on Christ’s Coming.

Not just his first coming at Christmas, but his Second Coming as well.

The Second Coming is mentioned over 300 times in the New Testament.

It was the hope of the early church and their constant prayer.

Maranatha. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

We must to cultivate that same eagerness for his return.

If we don’t, then we will have an anemic faith and an anemic Christianity.

So these Advent Sundays we’ve been studying Matthew 24.

It’s one of the most important passages in the New Testament about

the Second Coming.

Jesus’ disciples asked him:

“What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age.”

He responded by giving them, in these first 14 verses, three signs of his coming.

We’ve been looking at one sign each week.

Let’s look at the third sign of his coming.

The most significant of all.

INTRO: When we lived in Florida there was a popular Christian radio station.

I listened to it for a while but I quit because it seemed like it was only bad news.

It was always about the decline and decay of America,

and the corruption of our culture and the erosion of our morals,

and wickedness in high places.

I agreed with all of it, but it got depressing.

If you ask Christians if things are getting better or worse,

I bet most would say that things are getting worse.

That it’s mostly bad news out there.

And if you probed a little deeper, and got past politics and into theology,

I bet you would find that many American Christians have a view of end times

that things are going to get worse until the Second Coming.

But the picture the Bible paints of this age is not just bad to worse.

It’s more complicated than that.

It’s a picture of two kingdoms—the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light.

And both are advancing. Both are growing and maturing.

Do you remember the parable of the wheat and the tares?

The farmer sowed wheat in his field.

And then the enemy came at night sowed tares, weeds in the field.

And the servants came to the farmer and asked: Do you want us to pull weeds up?

He said, No. Let them grow together until the harvest.

And at the harvest the wheat will be gathered to the barn and the tares burned.

Jesus said the harvest is the judgment.

The point I want to draw to your attention is that both wheat and tares grow

together. Both mature. That means that, Yes, things are getting worse.

There is moral decay and wickedness in high places. Evil is maturing.

We have to take that into account.

But the big story is that things are getting better.

The kingdom of God is growing. The sons of God are maturing.

And that good news of the triumph of God’s grace in the world ought

to be the thing that captures your attention and shapes your outlook.

That’s exactly what we see in these words of Jesus.

His disciples wanted a sign.

“Tell us, when will these things be?” When will the Temple be destroyed?

“And what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?”

In the Jewish mind, those two events were one—

the destruction of the Temple and the end of the age.

Jesus answered and he gave them three signs.

First, he said, there will be wars, famines, and earthquakes.

Disasters. Signs of coming judgment.

Second sign, tribulation and apostasy. Christians will be persecuted.

Many will fall away from the faith and becoming enemies of the church.

Signs of opposition to the cause of Christ.

If those were the only two signs, I think we would say it’s just going to get worse.

But then Jesus gives the third sign.

“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.”

This is the most important sign of all. The preaching of the Gospel.

It’s a sign of the triumph of God’s grace in history.

The preaching of the Gospel is a sign that the kingdom of God is growing.

Men and women and boys and girls are coming under the Lordship of Christ.

The sons of God are maturing. Things are getting better.

Jesus says the Gospel will be preached to all nations. We can see that.

Then he says the most amazing thing of all.

The preaching of the Gospel is preparing the way for him,

and hastening his coming. It will be preached and then the end will come.

And that’s our work. As Christians and members of the church,

we all have a work to do in the proclamation of the Gospel to the nations.

And as we accomplish it, we hasten that coming.

In other words, the faster the church fulfills its mission,

the more quickly Jesus returns to earth.

The more quickly the day comes when every knee shall bow and every tongue

confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The more quickly the day comes when he

wipes away every tear from our eyes and there is no more death or mourning or

crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

So let’s look at this sign of Christ’s coming more carefully. And let it fill us

with encouragement and hope. Two points.

1. How this sign has already appeared.

2. What we can expect in the future.

MP#1 How this sign has already appeared

First in the Old Testament, and then in the New.

It starts with Abraham, the father of all who believe in Jesus Christ.

What was the great promise the Lord gave to Abraham? Do you remember?

The Lord promised him that he would be given an heir, a son,

through whom blessings would be extended to every people and nation.

“And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Then later, when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord reaffirmed that promise,

and expanded it. He told Abraham, Not only will you be a blessing to all nations,

you will be the father of many nations. That’s when the Lord changed his

name from Abram to Abraham. Abraham means, father of many nations.

That promise to Abraham is the starting point of a theme that is carried

right through the Old Testament—that one day, the salvation of the Lord

would extend through Israel to all the nations of the earth.

God reaffirmed the promise to Isaac and then to Jacob.

He told both of them, All nations will be blessed through you and your offspring.

And then, after the Patriarchs had died, this promise of blessing to the nations

is celebrated over and over in the Psalms. The Psalms were the hymnbook

of the Old Testament church. It’s remarkable how often this appears.

There are dozens of examples I could read, but here are just two:

“Ascribe to the Lord, O families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.” Ps. 96

“Praise the Lord, all you nations, extol him all you peoples.” Ps. 117

Over and over again, the worship songs of Israel echo the promise

that the Lord will make himself known among all nations

and extend the blessing of his covenant favor to every people.

When you turn to the writings of the prophets, this theme appears again.

Isaiah says that “in the last days, the mountain the house of the Lord will be

established as the chief of the mountains and all nations will stream to it.”

Zechariah speaks of “many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities”

going to the feasts of Judah and seeking the Lord.

Amos speaks of David’s tent being enlarged and the Gentiles,

the nations coming into that tent.

Prophet after prophet says that when the Lord comes,

he will judge the nations in righteousness and grant salvation to all peoples.

There is one more place you see this theme in the Old Testament.

In the personal stories of non-Israelites who believed in the God of Abraham.

There are not many, but they are significant because they are a foreshadowing

of the nations coming to Christ.

Rahab, a Canaanite woman. A citizen of Jericho. A prostitute.

She put her faith in the God of Israel, and sheltered the spies.

Do you remember what became of her?

She married a prince of Judah and is one of the great-grandmothers of Christ.

Ruth, a Moabite. An idol worshipper. She believed in the God of Israel

and followed her mother-in-law back to Bethlehem where she married Boaz

and she too is listed as one of the great-grandmothers of Jesus.

We don’t have time to talk about Naaman, the Syrian captain, and the Ninevites

who repented under Jonah’s preaching, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of

Babylon, who we will see in heaven because at the end of his life he believed

in the one true God. Each of these individuals is a little fulfillment and

appetizer of God’s promise to bless all nations through Abraham.

The Old Testament is permeated with this promise of a future age

of salvation and blessing for all nations. Even though Israel often failed

to be a light to the nations, the Lord’s promise did not change.

And that brings us to the New Testament and this age in which we live.

The Promised Son of Abraham was born in Bethlehem.

And the baby Jesus was not just visited by the shepherds of Israel,

but also by the wisemen, Magi from the east, Persians.

Then Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again for our salvation.

And what were his parting words?

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”

That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s Abrahamic.

And he said: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea,

and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

After Jesus ascended into heaven he sent the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit empowered the church to preach the Gospel to the nations.

That’s what Pentecost was, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower

the church to reach out beyond its Jewish roots and take the good news

of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and his salvation to all nations.

From Jerusalem the Apostles took the Gospel throughout the Roman empire,

into Europe, and from there it has spread around the world.

Let me give you some numbers to put things in perspective.

These are from the US Center for World Mission in Pasadena, California.

From the Day of Pentecost to the year 1900, the number of practicing

Christians grew from 0% of the world’s population to 2.5%.

Practicing Christians means Christians of any denomination who are actively,

participating in the life of the church. Not nominal Christians.

Some countries in Europe, for example, were Christian nations historically.

And a large majority still call themselves Christians. But the churches empty.

People might go on Christmas and for weddings and funerals, but that’s it.

This is a measurement of practicing Christians.

So, from the time all the believers could fit together in one room in Jerusalem to the

year 1900, percentage of practicing Christians grew to 2.5% of world population.

What has happened in the last 110 years?

From 1900 to 1970, practicing Christians grew to 5% of the world population.

It took 18 centuries to get to 2.5%, it took just 70 years to get to 5%.

And over the past 40 years, from 1970 to 2010, practicing Christians

have grown to 12% of the world population.

Today there is one practicing Christian for every seven people worldwide

who are either nominal or non-Christian.

A few weeks ago Andy and Brooke Cheely visited us. They are our missionaries

in Nanjing, China. And they talked about the growth of the church in China. From 1 million Christians to 80 million in the past 30 years.

And this is not Christianity lite. Christians in China have been baptized by

persecution, they pray, they preach repentance and faith in Christ.

And they are poised to have an impact on the world.

The preaching of the Gospel is one of the clearest signs that we live

in the last days of redemptive history. We live in the days in which

God’s promises of old to Abraham and the Patriarchs are being fulfilled.

The nations are bowing to King Jesus.

We are seeing the triumph of God’s grace in history.

You should be encouraged.

We are well on the way to seeing the sign of Christ’s coming.

So let’s consider now . . .

MP#2 What we can expect in the future

Jesus said:

“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.”

In the 1970s, missionaries and Bible scholars began to ask

some fascinating questions about this sign of Christ’s coming.

Can we measure it?

Can we measure how much farther the Gospel has to spread before

Jesus will return?

And what do we need to do to accomplish it?

So they started studying this verse and the big thing that jumped out was

the term “all nations.” In Greek the word is “ethne.”

Ethne doesn’t mean political groupings of people,

it means ethnic and cultural and linguistic groupings of people.

The Old Testament sometimes speaks of the families of nations.

That’s the concept being communicated.

In other words, “all nations” does not mean the United States and Germany

and India and Russia. It means people groups.

People who are bound together by common ethnicity, culture and language.

When we were out West this summer, we saw signs that said

Welcome to the Hopi Nation. Welcome to the Navajo Nation.

That’s not a political designation as much as it is a people group designation.

I mentioned China a moment ago. The vast majority of Chinese citizens

are Han Chinese, they speak Mandarin. They are the dominant culture.

But there are other people groups in China. The Manchu, the Miao, and others.

Each one has their own language and culture and sometimes ethnicity.

In India alone there are thousands of people groups.

Some with populations of 10,000 or less and some in the millions.

What does the Lord mean when he says that there must be a testimony to all

nations before he comes again?

He means that there must be indigenous churches in every people group that

communicate the Gospel in the language and culture of those people.

The churches may be small. They may be a persecuted minority.

But they will be a presence. They will be known and a testimony in that nation.

Dr. Ralph Winter is a great missions scholar, this is the way he explains Matt. 24:14

“By witness (or testimony) Jesus meant that the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in open view throughout entire communities. The gospel of the kingdom is Christ prevailing over evil, liberating people so that they can live obediently and freely under His lordship and blessing. God wants a persuasive display of that kingdom victory exhibited in every people. What better exhibit of God’s kingdom than a community of God’s people who are living under Christ’s authority? Nothing puts Christ’s lordship on display like a community of people (a church) dedicated to following Him and effectively pushing back against the dominion of darkness.”

So the task of missions is not merely to win individuals,

but to reach all the different people groups in the world.

That means that the task can be finished. Because even though the population

of the world keeps growing, the number of people groups does not.

This has prompted a great effort among missionary organizations to identify them,

and find out which ones are unreached.

That alone has been a huge job. There is something called the Joshua Project.

It started in the 70s as an effort to bring all this information together from

various missionary organizations. You can find Joshua Project online now.

It has identified about 7,000 people groups without a viable Gospel witness.

In other words, no churches. Some of these are small groups, some large.

But every year, unreached peoples are being reached with the Gospel.

In 1961 a 19-year-old from Minnesota named Bruce Olson believed the Lord

was calling him to be a missionary. He bought a one-way ticket to South America

and walked into the jungle. He found a stone-age tribe called the Motilone.

It took him five years to understand their language and thinking

clearly enough to share the Gospel.

He learned that they had a legend of a fall.

They believed that a false prophet who had promised their ancestors

a better hunting ground if they followed him. They did, and he led them

away from God. They believed that as a people they were cursed and unable

to ever find God. The way they put it is that they could not find God’s trail.

They believed that when they died, their souls would not follow God’s trail

over the horizon. So they were trapped in spirit worship and fear.

Bruce Olson struggled to tell them about Jesus Christ.

How they could be forgiven and know God through his son.

But he did not have a way of explaining it to them.

Then he remembered one of their stories about a man who was watching

some ants trying to build a house, and he tried to help them by digging

in the dirt, but the ants were afraid and ran away.

Then miraculously, the man became an ant.

He told them who he was, that he was that big man who had been trying to

help them. And at that moment he turned back into a man, and started to help the

ants again, and this time they let him because they knew he wouldn’t harm them.

So Bruce decided he would take this word in their language

“becoming like an ant” and apply it to the Son of God becoming a man.

He was talking to some men who were grieving the death of a relative.

Grieving the fact that the dead man’s soul could not find God.

This is what happened. Bruce said:

I took the word for “becoming like an ant” and used it for incarnation. “God is incarnated into man,” I said. They gasped. There was a tense, hushed silence. The idea that God had become a man stunned them. “Where did he walk?” the witch doctor asked in a whisper. Every Motilone has his own trail. It is his personal point of identity. You walk on someone’s trail if you want to find him. God would have a trail too. If you want to find God, you walk on his trail. My blood was racing, my heart pounding. “Jesus Christ is God become man,” I said. “He can show you God’s trail.” A look of astonishment, almost fear spread over their faces. “Show us Christ, (one man) said in a coarse whisper.”

From that conversation, the Gospel began to permeate that tribe, and one after

another, and then in a great wave, this tribe, this people began to walk on

Jesus’ trail, as they put it. That was the way they described the Christian life.

And this is what has happened in the decades since.

The Motilone church has sent out missionaries to surrounding tribes.

That has required them to learn 22 different languages.

And 18 of those tribes have responded to Gospel.

That is just one story of many that is happening in our time.

Revelation 5:9 is a song of praise to Jesus Christ. It says:

“You were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every

tribe and language and people and nation.”

That is happening in our day. It’s not just that more people are coming to Christ,

but more peoples—tribes, languages, peoples, and nations.

And the day is coming. When there will be a testimony of the Gospel

in all nations, and then the end will come.

CONC: When you’re a child, it’s hard to wait for Christmas.

You just want it to get here and you wish you could hurry it up.

You can hasten the Second Coming.

You can hasten the day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord.

You can hasten the day when he wipes away every tear from our eyes and

there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain,

for the old order of things has passed away.

You can hasten it by praying as the early church did.

Maranatha. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

And particularly by praying for and supporting the great work of world missions.

Every Lord’s Day we have a missionary letter in the bulletin—

today it’s from Verne and Alina Marshall in Chile—pray for them.

You already support them financially through your tithes and offerings.

Pray for them at Christmas. It’s hard to be away from home at Christmas.

And pray that the Lord would raise up sons and daughters from Christ Covenant

who will be missionaries. Not just for a summer, but as a life’s calling.

We are part of something great. The triumph of God’s grace in history.

John Piper says this in a sermon titled World Missions and the End of History:

“If we are disobedient, it is not ultimately the cause of God that will lose. God’s counsel will stand and he will accomplish all his purposes. His triumph is never in question, only our participation in it or our incalculable loss.

We can be drunk with private concerns and indifferent to the great enterprise of world evangelization, but God will simply pass over us and do his great work while we shrivel up in our little land of comfort.”

Let’s not do that this Christmas.

As we celebrate the birth of the Savior of the nations,

let’s not be drunk with private concerns and shriveled up in the land of comfort. Let’s lift our eyes and see this sign of the triumph of God’s grace.

Let’s look forward to his coming again, and hasten it with our prayers.