“Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44). Jesus’ Second Coming will be the Last Day (John 6:39-40, 44, 54). Many people think of the signs in Matthew 24 when they reflect about the final coming of Jesus Christ. If we study Matthew 24, “rightly dividing” (2 Timothy 2:15) this great chapter, we can refute wrong applications of it from Christ’s teaching. We hear people say about some event, “This is the sign of the end time.” This notion is widely accepted, but false. On Tuesday of the week that our Lord was crucified (Matthew 26:2), the Passion week, Jesus and His disciples left the Temple. The Lord and His disciples began their climb of Mount Olivet. They were on their way, and somewhere along the trek and in response to the disciples’ questions, Jesus spoke the sermon recorded in Matthew 24. Throughout His public ministry, the Lord had been in conflict with Jewish leaders. He had denounced them severely and had spoken about the end of the Jewish nation (Matthew 3:7-10; 8:10-12; John 4:21). The disciples’ questions were: When shall these things be? What shall be the sign of thy coming? What shall be the sign of the end of the world? (Matthew 24:3; Mark 13:4; Luke 21:7). Our Lord answered (Matthew 24:4-8). “These things” refer to the destruction of Jerusalem. They do not pertain to the Lord’s final coming of Judgment. The signs over which

“And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, Lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him…” (Matthew 3:16-17). At Jesus’ baptism that began His ministry, the heavens were opened, and they were also opened at the close of his ministry (Acts 1:9-11; Mark 16:9-20; Hebrews 4:14-16; 9:23-24). In the same manner, the heavens were opened when we were baptized, for we are “united with Christ in baptism” (Romans 6:1-5; Colossians 2:12; Galatians 3:26-27). The heavens will be opened to us again when we meet Christ at His Second Coming. If alive, that will certainly be when we close our ministries (John 14:1-4; Acts 1:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10). At our Lord’s baptism, Matthew 3:17 says, “And Lo a voice from heaven…” Again, it is most enlightening to read the times when “a voice came from heaven to Jesus.” We note this, too, at His birth in Luke 2:10-12. At His transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-5 and during the last days of His ministry as revealed in John 12:28, a voice from Heaven came to our Lord. The problem in the world today is that people are not hearing the voice of God. God speaks to us today through His Word as we are told, “Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 2:14). Faith comes “by hearing the

Paul wrote, “Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in body, we are absent from the Lord: For we walk by faith, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 KJV). Paul said that Christians living on earth are absent from the Lord. They have not in their human state gone to the place prepared for the saints (Matthew 25:46, Revelation 14:13). As absent from the Lord, we in the human body walk by faith, not by sight. That means that we are to trust in Lord’s words even though we are not in direct personal contact with the Lord. This does not mean that we can doubt God’s Word. Paul knew that Jesus is the Saviour even though he did not know Christ “after the flesh” (2 Corinthians 5:16; 2 Timothy 1:12). Jesus being in Heaven did not mean that men on earth could not know Him to be the Christ. There was a time when faith and sight went together. Men walked by faith because of sight. In John 20:29 we find, “Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Thomas believed the Lord’s resurrection only after personally seeing the Lord (John 4:39-42). He believed because of sight. Many during the Lord’s ministry came to believe on Him because of the things they saw