Daily Walk Through the New Testament

May 8

Read Matthew 24:9-35

Jesus described the events leading up to His return. He told of a time of tribulation before His Second Coming and connected these events with Daniel’s 70th Week in Daniel 9:27. After giving this brief overview of the tribulation, Jesus also described the abomination of desolation, which refers to a terrible desecration involving idolatrous worship in the temple.
There’s a variety of views among Christians about end times and how to interpret Matthew 24, but different views aside, we can all agree that Jesus is indeed coming back and that we are all called to be faithful. He told His disciples, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority,” and the He went on to say they would receive the Spirit’s power and be witnesses in the world (Acts 1:7-8). We see something similar here in Matthew. After Jesus described signs of the end times, He stressed the importance of living in obedient anticipation (Matthew 24:36-25:30 — tomorrow’s reading). May we conduct our daily lives with the expectation that He could return at any moment!