Luke 21:26 Commentary and Bible Study

These things will not be in doubt. All who have capacity to understand will be able to see what is happening. It will be obvious to all that the stability of the world which they counted on is threatened, and there is little they can do about it. Time is running out, and there can only be a limited period during which the world can survive, and things are getting worse even as they watch. Dire predictions are surely a feature of daily life during this final period. Fear will be the predominant feature of man’s response, but there is no mention of repentance. In the Book of Revelation we read that in spite of great judgments and suffering, ‘the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: ²¹ Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts’ (Revelation 9:20-21). Instead of humbling themselves before God, they express their resentment that God should presume to judge them. No wonder the judgment needs to be increasingly severe when man demonstrates such hardness of heart.‘For looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.’ That strong language indicates that the stability of the world has been damaged beyond repair. People can see that this is an unrecoverable situation, for the foundations of life on earth are breaking up. This is described as ‘coming on the earth’, the whole planet. That is disaster on the greatest scale that we can think of.