Ask Pastor Mike Live

Mike: On the line with Pastor Mike, how can I help?

Jeremiah: Hi, Pastor Mike. We really appreciate your wisdom and your willingness to share it with us. My question is about Matthew chapter 24 verses 29 through 31 and Revelation chapter 6 verses 12 through 14. The question is if those are parallel passages about the same event. They talk about the same things, like the sun and the moon and the stars and the sky going from the east and the west or being rolled up like a scroll. I wanted to know if those are the same events or what events are they?

Mike: No, I think you're onto something very clear here. That is that these cataclysmic events of what's going on with the sun and the moon and the things in the skies and the heavens, as they would call it in the first century, being shaken, that's how it's put there in Matthew 24, certainly is being fulfilled in stages throughout the judgments that are listed for us from Revelation 6 through Revelation 19.

Those chapters are all referring to what's going on as he has synthesized in the statements in Matthew 24 verses 29 through 31. In other words, you're getting all of the highlights in a very short paragraph about all that's going on with the seals and the bowls and the trumpets. All of that is condensed in that statement in verses 29 through 31 in Matthew 24.

That's why I am one who interprets Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse—not everybody does, but most people that teach on this station do—that this is a period of time that is describing what's going on in that tribulational period. That tribulational period is a time that I believe is destined as the 70th week of Daniel, the time of Jacob's trouble, the time that the church is going to be removed from the earth from that period of time.

Actually, a lot of the Bible is not even written for us. It's written for those that are going to be in it, written for us to know at least in our minds, but not for our experience. Just like a lot of the dead saints certainly aren't going to experience this in person. And we also, if we live and this starts at this particular point, I think it's going to start with the rise of a world leader and we will be out of here, I believe.

I believe that makes sense because these discussions in Daniel 7 are described for the time of Jacob's trouble, the 70th week of Daniel decreed for Israel and Daniel's people, the people of Israel. So, yes, you've made a good connection there, but I'd keep reading. Keep reading in Revelation 6 and you'll get all that goes on all the way to the gathering of the people together there and him coming back.

You can add in chapter 14 of Zechariah and say all of this is discussed. You'll see a lot regarding the Day of the Lord in the Old Testament prophets that looks to this final end when we have cataclysmic events taking place. Joel chapter 2, Ezekiel 32, there are a lot of passages that are going to talk about cataclysmic events, cosmic events in the heavens.

I think all of those are referring not to some metaphorical or symbolic thing. I think they're all talking about things that are actually going to happen where the world's going to be falling apart because God is pouring out his wrath on the world and things are going to be really bad here on planet Earth. I think that's the great tribulation as Jesus said, the greatest tribulation there has ever been, never been before and never will be again, that seven-year period that's coming. So, yes, I think that's a good connection. Why do you ask that question, Jeremiah?

Jeremiah: Just because they seemed pretty parallel. One of them says the sun turns red or the sun darkens, and then how the sky is rolled up like a scroll. The other section says the sky is from east to west. So I just wanted to see if that was the Day of the Wrath or if they were parallel, the same event.

Mike: Yes, it's the same set of events. If you go to Joel chapter 2, same thing. Sun and moon are darkened, the stars withdraw their shining. Ezekiel 32 says, "I'm going to blot you out and cover the heavens and make the stars dark. I'll cover the sun with a cloud and the moon will not give its light."

All these things obviously are from the perspective of standing on the face of the earth, but there's going to be a time when everything looking up is going to be a mess. All of that we see in the discussions of the coming of God's judgment on the earth. The time for his recompense has come. These are statements made in the Old Testament and they haven't happened yet.

I'm looking at Isaiah chapter 13 verse 10. "The stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light." So something's going on here on Earth that I think is described in great detail in Revelation chapter 6 all the way through chapter 19.

At the end in verse 31 of Matthew 24 when it talks about gathering his people together, his elect, his elect aren't the saints of the church age. The elect are those that are converted during the tribulational period that didn't get slaughtered yet. Those are all going to be described there in chapter 19 being saved by the arrival of Christ, which is what Zechariah is talking about at the end of chapter 13 and 14 of his prophecy.

All these things are yet to come. That's what makes me, as a Bible teacher, a futurist. These kinds of things, I look at, I read them, and I think, "Okay, when is this going to happen?" It hasn't happened yet. It's going to happen. Well, when does it happen? I think it happens in this time of Jacob's trouble, this time of the 70th week of Daniel, the coming of the Son of Man when he sets up his kingdom. He's going to be preceded by his judgment.

That judgment, according to the book of Revelation and Daniel chapter 9, is going to last for seven years. I think it's all coming and you've made a good connection there. Keep reading your Old Testament and you'll make even more. Even if you just look in your Bible software, which you can find online, and just type in "darkening moon and sun," you'll find these themes a lot and they're all looking to the very end just before Christ comes back to set up a kingdom.

It will be a kingdom for Israel where Israel is reunited with all the people from the 12 tribes, which is what happens next in Revelation 7. He's starting to pull those 144,000 special sealed people from every tongue, tribe, and nation. They're going to be a big part of the tribulational period and you're going to see all of Israel restored.

Then, I think in Revelation chapter 20, he describes how long that kingdom is going to be for, and it's a thousand years, repeated six or seven times. That's why we say, or at least I would say, I'm a premillennialist. Millennium means a thousand years. It's yet to come and it's going to come when all these prophecies from Ezekiel 32, Joel 2, Amos 8, Isaiah 13, Zechariah 14, all of those things are going to happen.

God's going to set up a kingdom for Israel. We're going to rule and reign with Christ in the church age, those of us that are resurrected at that time or taken up and changed, and all of this is yet to come. So, yes, that's a good connection. Jesus spoke of it and that's why Matthew 24 is yet to come. It hasn't happened yet. Helpful, Jeremiah? Does that help?

Jeremiah: Yeah, that helps a lot. Maybe just one quick question as a follow-up. You spoke about how in Matthew, the gathering of the elect is the gathering of those who are saved during the tribulation. So that could be Jew or Gentile or both?

Mike: Primarily the focus is on Israel, but all throughout the book of Revelation, it does talk about the gospel going out to every tongue, tribe, and nation and people that are getting saved in the tribulation from every tongue, tribe, and nation. So there's some universal turning to Christ coming from every ethnic group.

But the focus, according to the Old Testament and even the book of Revelation starting in the very next chapter that you were quoting, in Revelation 6, is Revelation 7 where all the tribes, Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, they're all represented here as core people serving God. I'm assuming, based on everything that's described about them in the book of Revelation, they're serving Christ by spreading the gospel to the Jews.

They have a voice beyond that, but people are being saved all over the world in the tribulational period. But the focus for God is fulfilling the promise to gather together, as it says in Romans chapter 11, that last generation of Israel, and all of Israel then will be saved.

In the last generation, he's going to bring Israel. If you go there now and share the gospel, most of them are going to reject you and say, "We don't believe he's the Messiah." Well, at the end of time, most of them are going to say, "Yes, he is the Messiah." You'll see a mass conversion of Messianic Jews in Israel.

Jeremiah: Right. Okay. Yeah, so that answered my question. So I guess what I was getting at was for Matthew 24, the gathering of the elect, that would happen after God already sealed the Jews and after they preached the gospel to the world.

Mike: Correct. They're going to be gathered. If you read in chapter 19 of Revelation, they're all going to be brought together and then in verse 11 and following, Christ himself is going to come back and judge their enemies and save them.

They're going to be saved by Christ personally and you can tie that to Zechariah 14. His feet are going to touch the Mount of Olives and he's going to set up a kingdom. That'll be the day when God finally comes and sets up the kingdom he keeps talking about. In a sense, we have the kingdom here in that he's ruling in our hearts and in our churches, but the world doesn't give a rip about any of that.

One day they all will, after seven years of torture, they're going to realize their sin and they're either going to die shaking their fist at God, which you read in chapter 6 of Revelation—they all realize this is the wrath of God just like everyone seems to when something big happens—and then the people that are turning to him, they're going to be saved by Christ. Christ is going to now set up a kingdom with Israel and the rest of the dead are going to have to wait until after the thousand years is over to be judged and be assigned a place of punishment depending on how bad or how moderately bad they were.

Yes, good questions. Keep reading. If you want more on this, you can go to pastormike.com and you can look up my 13-week study on end times. It walks through all of this. It'll help you piece together the book of Revelation and maybe give you some deeper appreciation for all those Old Testament texts that I think refer to the same things going on in Revelation, including Matthew 24, which was a great connection that you made, Jeremiah.