“GREAT TRIBULATION – GLORIOUS APPEARING”
LUKE 21:20-28

I. Introduction
The last days; the Second Coming; the end of the age; the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells! When we think about these things we classify them under the theological banner of prophecy. All of it is yet in the future, isn’t it? With regard to history, we understand it as something that has already been written. However, when it comes to prophecy, we tend to think of that as something that is yet to be written. It hasn’t happened so how can we write about it?

Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t have that problem? For God, the last days, the Second Coming, the end of the age, and the new heavens and the new earth are already as sure as history. From God’s eternal perspective, prophecy and history are really the same thing seen from two different points of view. In short, from God’s eternal perspective, both prophecy and history coexist and blend together perfectly well.

We don’t see it that way, because being locked in space and time as we are, we cannot see it that way. But God, who created both space and time, is locked in neither. He oversees all of it. So when God writes of the future, it may be our future, but it isn’t His. He is already there. When He writes of the future, He is really just writing what for us will one day be his-tory. Isn’t that what so much of the prophecy in the OT already is – past history? NT pro-phecy, on the other hand, is for lack of a better term, “future history.” It’s as sure as if it’s already happened.

In fact, the future is so sure that the Holy Spirit sometimes gave those who wrote the Scrip-tures words that made the future sound like the past. One of the most striking examples of this has to do with the absolute certainty of our salvation.
*Romans 8:29-30
29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren;
30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

You say, “I know I’ve been foreknown by God. I know I’ve been predestined. I know I’ve been called through the gospel. I know I’ve been justified by faith. But I have yet to be glor-ified.” You’re right, but only to a point. It would be more accurate for you to say that you have yet to see your glorification. Just because it is yet future – future from our perspective – does not mean it hasn’t happened. Remember, from God’s perspective your glorification is already done. It’s a sure thing. And that’s precisely why the Holy Spirit could direct Paul to speak of it in the past tense. Listen, Romans 8:29-30 is a prophecy about you, Christian, but it’s written as though it were history.
I hope that brightens up your morning because, in today’s text in Luke 21, Jesus is going to speak plainly about some other prophecies or, if I may, “future history.” He is going to talk to His disciples, and by extension, He is going to speak to us as well. And as He does, we’ll want to remember that what our Lord has to say to us will come to pass just as surely as if it has already happened.
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II. Review
How have we come to this point in Luke? It is early Wednesday evening before the Friday morning on which Jesus will be crucified. The location is the Mount of Olives, just east of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jesus has spent the day preaching and teaching in the Tem-ple, which is visible from where He is now standing on the western slope of the mountain. The Lord is delivering His last major address to His disciples and to the others who have accompanied Him to this place. They are now hearing Him speak of the future in what has come to be known as the “Olivet Discourse.”

In it Jesus has been directing our attention to the period in which we now live – commonly called the “Church Age” – the time that began with the birth of the church at Pentecost and will end with the Rapture yet future. In Matthew 24-25 and Mark 13 Jesus gives some very detailed descriptions of the days that must soon come upon us. They both parallel and com-pliment Luke’s description of those events.

In Luke 21:8 Jesus tells us that the age in which we now live will be marked by great decep-tion. There will be many more false teachers and practitioners of false religion than true ones. So it only follows that there will be more false Christians than true ones. He warns us not be deceived, but Matthew and Mark say that the false teachers, “…will mislead many.” In fact, shortly before Jesus’ Second Coming, the deception will greatly intensify.
*Matthew 24:24-25
24 “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
25 “Behold, I have told you in advance.”

In Luke 21:9-11 Jesus tells us that the end of the age in which we now live will see a dra-matic increase in wars and disasters, both natural and man-made. And He makes it clear that that increase is not the end, it merely points to the end.
*Matthew 24:8
8 “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.”

In Luke 21:12 He says, “…they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you…” and in v. 18-19 Jesus comforts us with these words: “Yet not a hair of your head will perish (and) by your endurance you will gain your (eternal) lives.” Since the church was born in Acts 2 it is estimated that 70 million professing Christians have been martyred for their testimony of faith in Christ. They have all died, but not one true Christian has perished.
When the last days are nearly upon this world, the deception, the wars and disasters, and the persecution will ratchet up. It will all get even worse.
*Matthew 24:21-22
21 “…for then there will be a Great Tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall.
22 “And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short.”

As we continue in Luke 21 it is this Great Tribulation that Jesus will be talking about.
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III. Text
The chronology and horrors of the Great Tribulation are laid out for us in The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, or simply The Revelation. It starts in Revelation 6 where we see God begin to pour out His wrath upon the earth and its inhabitants with the release of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It ends in Revelation 19 with Jesus’ Second Coming and His destruction of the forces of evil at the Battle of Armageddon.

Here, in Luke 21, Jesus doesn’t give us many of those details. Rather, as the Great Tribula-tion draws to a close and His Glorious Appearing nears, He warns, instructs, and encourages those who will still be alive at the end of the age.
*Luke 21:20-28 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand.
21 “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city;
22 because these are days of vengeance, in order that all things which are writ-ten may be fulfilled.
23 “Woe to those who are with child and those who nurse babes in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people,
24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dis-may among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves,
26 men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
27 “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
28 “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
This is one of those NT passages that theologians love to debate because it is so vital to their view of the eschatology (the theological study of the end times or last things). There are those who hold to the view that Jesus is talking about what happened in 70 A.D. when Rome invaded and destroyed Jerusalem. They argue that many people did flee to the mountains. Many thousands more were killed, the city was plundered, and the Temple was destroyed. And when all of that was over, Caesar ordered his armies to demolish the entire city so fully and completely that not a trace of it would even be visible to a casual passerby.

While many of those things did happen in 70 A.D., what Jesus speaks of in v. 22 did not. “…all things which are written (in the OT) may be fulfilled.” But “all things” were certainly not fulfilled in 70 A.D. – not even close!
*Luke 21:20-22
20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand.
21 “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city;
22 because these are days of vengeance, in order that all things which are writ-ten may be fulfilled.”

Yes, at first glance vv. 20-21 may well be descriptive of what would happen in 70 A.D. But they could just as easily be about many other times in Jerusalem’s history over the last two thousand years. However, none of those times have been the final time. Taken in context it becomes clear that those two verses speak of a time that is directly connected to God’s final judgment of the earth and its inhabitants. So you cannot disconnect vv. 20-21 from the Glorious Appearing that Jesus speaks of in vv. 27-28.

Look once more at v. 22 where Jesus says that the times He is talking about “…are days of vengeance.” That’s not Rome’s vengeance against Jerusalem only forty years after Jesus says it. It’s God’s vengeance against sin. That phrase, “days of vengeance,” is the OT equivalent of the NT “day of the Lord.” It’s about judgment, final judgment. And as horri-ble as was Jerusalem’s judgment in 70 A.D., it didn’t approach what is coming upon the whole world during the Great Tribulation.

And as I mentioned earlier, there is something else in v. 22 that clearly indicates Jesus is talking about the last days before His return. Notice that He says that the days of vengeance have a prophetic purpose. They are to fulfill “all things” that have been prophesied against sin. All of those things can only be fulfilled at the Second Coming.

Back in v. 20 Jesus used the word “desolation.” What did He mean? What specifically is the desolation? The Prophet Daniel uses the word when speaking of what the Antichrist will do in last days. He will declare himself to be God and will turn against Israel.
She will be attacked from all sides. No one will defend her. This will be the event that will unleash what Jesus Himself calls the Great Tribulation. This event – the Antichrist declaring himself to be God – is the ultimate abomination, the ultimate blasphemy, and it will trigger the second half of the tribulation period.

How long will this blasphemy and tribulation go on? Both Daniel and Revelation tell how long it will last. Daniel 12:7 says it will “…be a time, times, and half a time.” Revelation 11:2-3 say it will go on for forty-two months or 1260 days (30 day months). But regardless of how it may be expressed, the length of time is always the same. The Great Tribulation will continue for three and a half years.

Now remember that the earth and its people will have been decimated during the first three and a half years of the tribulation, but after the abomination of desolation, the full fury of God’s righteous wrath will be poured out.

Revelation tells us about it in details that stagger the imagination. By the time it ends, two-thirds of the world’s Jews will be dead, and fully one-half of the rest of the human race will be gone as well. But God will finally bring it to an end.
*Matthew 24:15, 21-22
15 “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)
21 …for then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall.”
22 “And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short.”

Who are the elect in v. 22? Well, the church has already been taken to heaven in the Rap-ture. So these must be the elect whom God will have saved after the Rapture, and who will have survived the tribulation. They will witness the Second Coming and will enter into, and subsequently begin to populate, the Millennial Kingdom. But in the meantime…
*Luke 21:23-24
23 “Woe to those who are with child and those who nurse babes in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people,
24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

The word “woe” in is “ŏuai,” an expression of overwhelming and consuming grief. Such is the grief that will come upon expectant mothers and those with infants when God’s wrath consumes so much of this world. If the thought of young mothers and their babies suffering through horrific times is hard for us to imagine, or even to read, how much harder must it be for Jesus to say? Why would He single them out?
Could it be that He does so to emphasize the depth of horror and anguish that accompany the Great Tribulation? I don’t know, but Jesus’ words in Luke 21:23-24 are, to say the least, very disturbing.

Let me say one thing about the words in v. 24, “…until times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” This must be understood in its larger context. For roughly two thousand years – from the time Joshua led the Jews into the promised land (1406 B.C.) until the time of their exile into Babylon (587 B.C.) – Israel was arguably the most prominent and important nation on the face of the earth.

That prominence and importance came to an end with the Babylonian captivity. To one degree or another, the Jewish people have been oppressed, dominated, or attacked by the Gentile nations ever since. In short, it is the Gentile nations that have ruled the world. We are living in the church age, to be sure, but the church age is also “the times of the Gentiles.”
And Jesus says that there will come a day “when the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

In this statement we find another reason why this passage in Luke 21 cannot refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. If it did, then the times of the Gentile domination of the world would have ceased. But it didn’t. It still hasn’t. The Gentiles still rule the world. But that will end when God’s vengeance in unleashed upon this world. It’s only then that “the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” That’s what Jesus is saying to us in Luke 21:24.
*Luke 21:25-26
25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dis-may among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves,
26 men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

It was back in v. 7 where Jesus’ disciples questioned Him by asking, “Teacher, when will these things be? And what will be the sign…” In its context it seems unlikely that they’re only asking Him about the destruction of the Temple as He described it in vv. 5-6. Rather, they are asking a much broader question.

What they want to know is “When are You going to die? When are You going to rise again? When are You going to leave? When are You coming back? When are You going to estab-lish Your kingdom?” Aren’t those the questions you’d be asking? So just like us, the dis-ciples want to know, and I paraphrase, “When will these things happen and what should we be looking for?” Matthew reports the disciples’ question this way: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and the end of the age (24:3)?”

There is a clear chronological time table, a sequence of events that takes place through all of what will happen as the Second Coming draws nearer. While Luke’s account may not make it so clear, there are a few words in Mark’s gospel that help us see it, that clear up any poten-tial misunderstanding about the order of events.
Mark 13:24
24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.”

So what happens in Luke 21:25 will be near the very end of the Great Tribulation. It is almost as if Jesus is describing the final death throes of some mortally wounded wild beast. Can you even imagine it? Just before the Glorious Appearing of our Lord and Savior the entire visible creation will go through such a massive upheaval and convulsion that men will faint away from the terror of it all. What could cause the things Jesus speaks about in Luke 21:25, or the things He says in Mark 13:24?

What about the earth being struck by a massive meteor. It’s happened before. The result of one such impact could easily set off chains of earthquakes and tidal waves. The result of multiple impacts would be disastrous. If a meteor were large enough, it wouldn’t even have to impact the earth to do catastrophic damage. At the incredible speeds meteors can travel (up to 160,000 mph) a large body passing close enough to earth could alter our planet’s rotation on its axis. A variation of only a few degrees would cause worldwide climactic changes that even the most ardent global warming advocates haven’t considered possible.

Try to imagine such geological upheaval that rivers would change their courses, lakes would be emptied, valleys would be filled, poles would melt, jungles would freeze, and hurricanes (typhoons) and tornadoes would ravage the surface earth. These are the kinds of things Jesus is talking about. But God hasn’t just introduced these things in the gospels. Many of the OT prophets spoke of them as well. Consider just two examples from Isaiah…
*Isaiah 13:6-11a
6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt.
8 And they will be terrified, pains and anguish will take hold of them; they will writhe like a woman in labor, they will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light.
11a Thus I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity…

The initial recipient of this prophecy of the judgment of God against sin was Babylon. But as is so often the case with prophecies, they speak of more than one event. This prophecy is no exception. It also speaks of the last days where Jesus uses examples from Isaiah. We love to talk about God’s longsuffering, His endless patience with sin, and His boundless or limitless grace. But God’s grace does have its limits. The Great Tribulation proves it!
*Isaiah 24:3-6, 19-20
3 The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the LORD has spoken this word.
4 The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away.
5 The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, vio-lated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.
19 The earth is broken asunder, the earth is split through, the earth is shaken violently.
20 The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard, and it totters like a shack, for its transgression is heavy upon it, and it will fall, never to rise again.

Are these the words of the same righteous and holy God of love, grace, and mercy who loves you and sent His only begotten Son to die for you? Yes, they are! He says them because He is righteous and holy and because that very righteousness and holiness demand punishment for evil and for sins committed. Do you see? The cross proves the depth of His love for you and for me. The Great Tribulation proves the depth of His fury for those who reject His love and hate Him. Either way, the cross and the judgment to come, both display God’s holiness.

It’s no surprise that “…men (will faint) from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
*Revelation 6:15-17
15 And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains;
16 and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;
17 for the great day of their wrath has come and who is able to stand?”

But the judgment of the earth and its inhabitants only becomes more severe. They begin with the sound of angels’ trumpets from heaven.
*Revelation 8:7-10, 12
7 And the first (angel) sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
8 And the second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood;
9 and a third of the creatures, which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed.
10 And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch (a comet?), and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.
12 And the fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were smitten, so that a third of them might be darkened and the day might not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way.

And so the Great Tribulation continues. If we were to keep reading we would see new and unimaginable horrors released upon the earth. The fifth trumpet judgment sends forth the demons that God has previously locked in the bottomless pit. They are led by one of the few demons the Bible actually names. He is Apollyon, the destroyer. The sixth trumpet releases new and terrible war machines that Revelation 9:18 tells us will kill fully one third of the remaining human race. Finally, the seventh trumpet sounds. But even now it doesn’t end. Another seven judgments are about to poured out on what is left of the earth and those who are still alive on it. You can read about them in Revelation 16.

But then, at last, the Apostle John, the beloved disciple, says…
*Revelation 19:11, 16
11 And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

We’ve talked a lot about the Great Tribulation. Now, finally, it is over and we can see the Glorious Appearing. Praise God! Hallelujah! What else can you say?
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IV. Conclusion
In conclusion I would simply read the last two verses of this morning’s text in Luke’s gospel, let them speak for themselves, and we’ll close in prayer.
*Luke 21:27-28
27 “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
28 “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

~ Pray ~