“The end is not yet”

Jesus answers his disciples concerning their question as to what the sign will be of his coming again and the end of the age.

Jesus lists a number of things that will come to pass, such as false Christs, wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 

Jesus said, with respect to these things, the “end is not yet.”  These things are called the “beginning” of “sorrows” or “birth pains.”  There is debate as to whether these things characterize the entire period between Jesus’ first and second coming, or whether they characterize in an intensified form the first half of that period prophetically known as the “70^th Week of Daniel,” which is commonly understood by many as the last 7 years before Christ returns. If it is that latter period, those things are often identified as being represented in the first four seals of the book of Revelation.

Yet we know these things have happened and continue to happen.   Even if these things that Jesus referred to are to be understood in an intensified form during the 70^th Week, one is to understand that even then the end of the age will not occur immediately, for there are other things to take place, which Jesus references in Matthew 24.  But it is common for people to think the end is near when the things Jesus referenced happen to some extent.  Whether it is a world war or a major earthquake or a locust plague or a virus that causes death to great numbers, people wonder if the end is near.  

Whether Jesus was speaking of things that characterized the period between his comings or the beginning of the 70^th week , the “end is not yet,” for other things will come to pass, being that period Jesus called “great tribulation.”  Great tribulation is that period that involves the rise of individual the Scripture identifies as the “lawless one” and the “beast.”  That period will be one of severe persecution of Christians and all who do not follow the “beast” and his economic controls.  It will go its course until it is “shortened” by the coming of Christ.   For Jesus said that if those days were not cut short, no flesh would survive, but for the “elects sake,” those days will be cut short.