May: Joseph Smith—Matthew 1; Matthew 24–25; Mark 12–13; Luke 21
There are so many movies about the world ending in a catastrophe but a superhero saving the day just before all is destroyed. The story found in Joseph Smith – Matthew is very similar. We read about the end of the world, but someone better than a superhero will save the world – Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Redeemer and Savior.
Background
Previously in our study of the New Testament, we have mentioned the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) of the Bible. Many of the JST passages have given us a more complete understanding of difficult passages in the New Testament. Matthew 24 was a part of the Prophet’s translation but because of the significant changes he made and the importance of this chapter, Church leaders decided to include this translation as a part of the Pearl of Great Price. Thus, this translation became scripture. In the JST version of Matthew 24, there are 55 verses as compared to the King James Version of 51 verses. We have been blessed with more information and knowledge from the Lord about His Second Coming through this translation.
In Matthew 24, the Savior was teaching His apostles about His Second Coming because He knew He would soon be leaving them. Just before teaching them this discourse, He had been with them in the temple. He called the scribes and Pharisees to repentance and warned them that they must repent because of the calamities which would shortly come upon them in Jerusalem. After leaving the temple, Jesus took His Apostles to Mount of Olives. This move from the temple to the Mount of Olives is significant since this is the place where He will ascend into heaven after His visits with them as a resurrected being and it is where He will return at His Second Coming. His discourse was a message of hope for the future, but also a warning to be faithful and diligent in personal preparations to see Him again.
Questions about the Second Coming
All of us have questions about the Second Coming: When will it happen? Will the destruction and devastation before His Coming affect my family? How can I better prepare?
The Apostles had the same questions. They asked the Lord: “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”i The Savior answered question one in Matthew 24:5-21 and He answered the second question in Matthew 24:22-55.
His answer to when will He come again did not include a date. Instead, it described the conditions that will happen on earth in preparation for His Second coming, warning of false prophets, iniquity, and the abomination of desolation. There are two times when this devastation will happen. The first was when Rome lay siege to Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Christians living in Jerusalem remembered that the Savior had warned, “Then let them who are in Judea flee into the mountains,”ii and they fled to a city in the northern foothills of the Jordan Valley. The Jews living in Jerusalem experienced starvation and eventual destruction during the Roman siege, while those who heeded the Savior’s warning escaped.
The second abomination of desolation will happen after the Restoration of the gospel but before the Second Coming. The description of this time is pretty bleak: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”iii The Lord also gives us the promise: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”iv Enduring to the end should be the focus of our attention rather than when the Second Coming shall happen.
Pres. Oaks helped us put this question of “When?” into the right focus: “While we are powerless to alter the fact of the Second Coming and unable to know its exact time, we can accelerate our own preparation and try to influence the preparation of those around us. …What if the day of His coming were tomorrow? If we knew that we would meet the Lord tomorrow—through our premature death or through His unexpected coming—what would we do today? What confessions would we make? What practices would we discontinue? What accounts would we settle? What forgivenesses would we extend? What testimonies would we bear?” v These are the questions we should be asking ourselves.
Wise Virgins and Preparing for the Bridegroom
Rather than being worried about all the scary events happening before His coming, we should be filling up our lamps in preparation for His wedding feast. He is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride. We must make sure that our oil is full as we wait for the Bridegroom’s entrance so that we can enter into His Kingdom.
Pres. Spencer W. Kimball taught that “[t]he kind of oil that is needed to illuminate the way and light up the darkness is not shareable. How can one share obedience to the principle of tithing; a mind at peace from righteous living; an accumulation of knowledge? How can one share faith or testimony? How can one share attitudes or chastity, or the experience of a mission? How can one share temple privileges? Each must obtain that kind of oil for himself. …”vi The Savior’s message was one of warning – to fill up your lamps – and hope – that the righteous will be saved. We do not know when His Coming will happen but we do know that the time does not matter for we will ALL see Him again either in this life or the next. In either case, we will be asked to reconcile our life with His teachings. Hopefully, we are prepared for that great and glorious day.
i Matthew 24:4
ii Matthew 24:16
iii Matthew 24:21-22
iv Matthew 24:13
v Dallin H. Oaks, Preparation for the Second Coming, April GC 2004.
vi Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, 1972, 255-256.
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