Matthew 24:23 Commentary and Bible Study

Throughout the entire gospel age the warning given in verse 4-5 of this chapter will need to be heeded, but especially towards the end of the age. The claim that Christ is come has become more insistent with the announcement that he is in a certain place. The Lord speaks of false Christs and false prophets in the plural. Satan will try to deceive many times and in many different ways. He will not give up if he does not succeed at first. The disciples will long for the return of their Lord and Saviour, and especially as wickedness increases, and any remnant of morality is taken away. In Luke’s Gospel, the additional words are given, ‘The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it’ (Luke 17:22-23). That is what he wants more than anything else. At the end of the Book of Revelation we have the final promise: ‘He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly’, and the church responds with the words, ‘Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus’ (Revelation 22:20). This will increase the intensity of desire for the Lord’s return, making the true disciple susceptible to the claim that Christ has come. In addition, there will be signs and wonders which appear to support the claims of the false Christs and false prophets. Nevertheless, these will not succeed in deceiving even one of God’s elect. A believer cannot lose his salvation. Moses warned Israel of the very same danger: ‘If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, ² And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; ³ Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him’ (Deuteronomy 13:1-4). God’s people will be protected by such warnings.Finally, Satan will succeed in bringing the antichrist into the world. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 we read, ‘Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first [a great apostasy in the world, a final spurt in the rejection of Almighty God], and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; ⁴ Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.’ Will that be an individual person at the very end of time, or will it be a movement of people? We certainly see a movement now. This is the ultimate secular age. So aggressively and fiercely men say, ‘There is no God’ and everything is done, scientifically and in every way, to prove that we are God and we may sit in the temple as if we are God, and we have the right to determine our own moral standards and substitute entirely different standards, where wrong becomes right and right becomes wrong. Then verses 7-8: ‘For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. ⁸ And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.’