There are well over a billion Muslims in the world today, and the numbers keep growing. Islamic is not only prospering in Middle East countries, but in the West as well. Muslim neighbourhoods have sprouted up across mainland Europe and the UK, as well as in the good old United States – parts of the world considered predominantly Christian.

Should Christians be concerned? Certainly. Christians should be more concerned, perhaps, that too many Christian churches are weak and worldly and full of mushy, lifeless messages. If the Western Church were full of the Spirit of God and gushing life, there would be little to draw people to Islam.

Both Christianity and Islam, however, are missionary religions. Christian missionaries and evangelists spread the Good News that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and Muslims spread Islam. Yet, if people decide they want to leave Christianity, they are free to go. Jesus never chased people down and forced them to follow him. Judgment might await unbelievers, but believers do not pick up stones to hasten the journey. In fact, many Christians pray desperately for their loved ones who walk away from Christ, waiting with hope for the prodigal's safe return.

Leaving Islam, however, is not such an easy thing. Even in the West, Muslim young people resist telling their families they have converted to Christianity out of honest fear. And while Muslims are free to spread their faith in the West, Christians are not necessarily free to preach the Gospel to Muslims.

Algeria

Four Algerian Christians have just received suspended jail sentences and fines for attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity. Under 2006 law, it is illegal for non-Muslims to attempt to convert Muslims. The Muslim government of Algeria denies harassing Christians, but over a dozen Christian churches have been closed in the past half year.

Iran

Muslim converts to Christianity have had their homes raided and have been imprisoned in a recent crackdown in Iran. Many Christian converts are held for weeks and are physically and psychologically mistreated. Huge bail amounts are required for their release, and they are threatened against spreading their faith or worshiping.

Yet, it may be the difficulty that makes Christianity so precious in traditionally Muslim countries. In the free West, we take the love of Christ for granted. In Iran, though, the underground Christian church is healthy and growing, much to the alarm of the Islamic authorities. Open Doors USA President Carl Moeller said the Iranian authorities, "are recognizing that there's a mushrooming house church movement going on in Iran. (It's) doubling in size of the indigenous house church movement there in Iran every six months. So the rate of growth is actually stunning."

Under current law in Iran, leaving Islam can be punishable by death, though no execution has been carried out in recent years. The home church growth in Iran has been enough, however, to get even the Iranian parliament upset. There was a proposal reportedly put out this January to make the death penalty mandatory for "apostates" who leave Islam.

Moeller said he believes there is "disillusionment with conservative clerics and harsh political hatred," in Iran, which he said "creates a tremendous opportunity for the love of Jesus Christ to make inroads into people's lives. People are searching for real spiritual answers, and they are finding it in Jesus Christ." Radio and satellite broadcasts of Christian messages in Farsi have been a tremendous evangelical tool.

Britain

While the Church is growing in Iran, though, the Muslim community has been spreading in England. In fact, it was reported Monday that two preachers handing out tracts were told to stop by a Muslim policeman. "You can't preach the Bible here," the officer said, "This is a Muslim area."

The officer went on to say that spreading the Gospel in a Muslim area was considered a hate crime. "You have been warned," the officer said. "If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned."

The two preachers, one of them an Egyptian-born Muslim convert to Christianity, did not take the rebuff sitting down. Baptist Missionary Arthur Cunningham said, "I am dumfounded that the police seem so nonchalant. They seem content not to make it clear that what we were doing was perfectly legal. This is a free country and to suggest we were guilty of a hate crime for spreading God's word is outrageous."

An Idea

What is the answer to the spread of Islam in Britain? Anglican Paul Eddy is arguing that the Church of England should stop being so blasted wishy-washy.

Last week, Eddy proposed that the Anglican Church state very plainly that it believes Jesus Christ to be the only way to God, and stop watering down its faith. It should give its members tools for evangelizing Muslims and wisdom on helping Muslims converts to Christianity.

"For years, we have sent missionaries throughout the whole world, but when we have the privilege of people of all nations on our doorstep, we have a responsibility as the state church to share the gospel of Jesus Christ," said Eddy.

Islam is making its way in the West, but it would have far less success without dead Christianity. Dead Christianity is a vaccine that inoculates people against the real thing. True Christianity is full of life and health through the Spirit of God. Dead Christianity has few answers, and looks no different than any other religion on earth. Christ-centered Christianity is full of holy power that frees people and heals lives. The Christians of Iran have found what too many Western churches have lost - Jesus Christ. If we get him back in our churches, in our homes and our lives, we'll be leading the Muslims to him, rather than the other way around.

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." - John 14:6
 

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It is ironic that Jesus' opening imperative in His "Olivet Discourse" is "Take heed that no man deceive you." This is His command, but it begs a question of means: "How do we avoid that?" There seems to be more conjectures and misunderstandings over this passage than almost any other in the New Testament.

The tools to avoid deception derive from a study of epistemology: the study of knowledge - its scope and limits. Our exploration of this passage will challenge more than simply our hermeneutics alone. It will challenge our grasp of the whole eschatological plan in its entirety.

For many students of eschatology - the study of last things - the so-called Olivet Discourse has proven to be a troublesome passage, with many finding it confusing and ostensibly self-contradictory; a hermeneutical battleground between the dispensationalists and the preterists, etc. The preterists insist that this passage - and the Book of Revelation - has been already fulfilled, and much of it is dismissed by them as simply allegorical. Yet even those who embrace a dispensational view have difficulty reconciling many of the Olivet Discourse passages.

Resolving Power

In optics, the resolving power of a telescope determines its ability to distinguish between two close, but distinct, stars. An apparent single star viewed with a cheap telescope turns out to be a pair of distinctly separate stars when viewed with a telescope of better optical quality. This quality is known as the "resolving power" of its optics.

We seem to have an analogous situation here. In this case, we may benefit by setting aside our presumptions and presuppositions and let the several texts speak for themselves.

A Hazardous Tradition

The traditional "harmonization of the Gospels" is part of the problem. Ever since Augustine, scholars have attempted to meld the four distinct Gospels into a combined narrative. While this can be useful for a cursory review of the life of Christ, it can also result in a myopia of sorts and the "Olivet Discourse" (recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21) is a salient example.

Since Matthew was skilled in shorthand, we tend to lean on his detailed rendering. And yet there seems to be a substantial disparity between his record and that of Luke's. Numerous elements appear identical in both accounts, so it has been fashionable - for 1700 years - to assume that they both deal with the same event. Attempts to "harmonize" them have continued to yield a treacherous minefield of confusion.

Trusting the Texts

It seems that setting aside all of our presuppositions, and simply trusting the integrity of the texts may improve our "resolving power" in addressing these passages.

Jesus called us to respect the details, so let's take a closer look at each of them. They each may be focusing on different events from a different perspective and maybe even addressing different audiences on different occasions. The similarities of expression in the various accounts may have caused us to jump to premature conjectures, etc.

The Beginning of Sorrows

Matthew's account opens with a series of ominous signs:

"For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows [or 'birth pangs'] (Matthew 24:5-8)."

Luke's account contains the ostensibly identical series of signs:

"But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven (Luke 21:9-11)."

It would seem that these, and many other similarities throughout the respective passages, appear to be a summary of the same teachings by our Lord on the same occasion. (Many scholars note that these specific signs also seem to parallel the same series of signs in the opening of the Seven Seals in Revelation Chapter 6.)

Matthew's account continues, "Then shall…" (verses 9, 10, 11, et al.). The bulk of his record deals with events after these "sorrows" or birth pangs. He (as well as Mark) further introduces - and emphasizes - an additional sign that is omitted from Luke's account:

"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand) (Matthew 24:15)."

This proves to be a major verse for a number of reasons. Here Jesus saves us hours of boring library research by authenticating the authorship of Daniel, and his role as a prophet. Jesus also referred to a key historical event: the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes that had occurred two centuries earlier in 167 BC.

This historical event was well known to every Jew, and the subsequent rededication of the desecrated Temple is still celebrated every year at Hanukkah. (This is even alluded to in John 10:22.)

The "Abomination of Desolation" refers to Antiochus' establishing an idol to Zeus in the Holy of Holies that precipitated the Macabbean revolt, which ultimately threw off the Seleucid yoke and ushered in the rule of the Hasmoneans. It is referred to four times in Daniel.

But here, Jesus is indicating that this desecration will happen again and that this time it will usher in a period that Jesus Himself labels "the Great Tribulation" (quoting from Daniel and which Jeremiah called "the time of Jacob's trouble." (Both Matthew's and Mark's renderings also include the parenthetical admonition to the reader for understanding!)

Luke's Divergence

Luke's account focuses on a siege of Jerusalem that is substantially divergent from the Matthew account. It is the presumption that they are both dealing with the same event that is the source of misunderstandings. Everyone seems to overlook what Luke says after mentioning the famed series of signs:

"But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake (Luke 21:12)."

Luke then focuses on a desolation of Jerusalem that precedes the series of signs that earmark both passages! Matthew focuses on a desolation that follows that same series of signs. Luke's rendering deals with the fall of Jerusalem that occurred 38 years later in 70 AD, Matthew all but ignores it.

Luke notes that "this generation shall not pass away until all be fulfilled." It is interesting that Jerusalem fell 38 years later, the very same duration that it took for that earlier generation to expire during the wanderings in the wilderness.

In contrast, Matthew's account deals with events that follow that same series of signs, including the Abomination of Desolation announced in Matthew 24:15. (Some try to suggest that this event happened during the siege of 70 AD, but that is contrary to the substantial eye witness accounts recorded. A war was going on and no idol was so established, "standing in the Holy Place," etc. In fact, Titus was frustrated by the fire that broke out in the Temple and he later had to command his soldiers to dismantle it "stone by stone" to recover the gold that had melted, etc. This, too, was a fulfilment of our Lord's prophecy.)

It is important to note the details of the attacks of the Romans in 66-70 AD. Vespasian and his son, Titus, were sent by Nero to make war with the Jews. However, the death of Nero delayed the siege, and subsequently Vespasian acceded to the throne of the empire and left his son Titus to complete the siege. Luke's account had warned his listeners:

"And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto (Luke 21:20-21)."

Over 1,100,000 perished in the siege. Those who heeded Jesus' warning apparently escaped. Some scholars infer that few, if any, Christians perished in the siege.

By contrast, Matthew's account conspicuously terminates with the Second Coming of Christ and the cosmic upheavals incident thereto, which are alluded to in both accounts. Matthew's account was written for the Jew, seems destined to be a survival handbook for those enduring the forthcoming unprecedented time.

Luke's, on the other hand, written for the Gentiles, seems to totally ignore the Great Tribulation. In fact, it would seem that his readers shouldn't be concerned:

"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh (Luke 21:28)."

(The word for "redemption," apolutrosis, appears nine times in the New Testament, and always is used to refer to the redemption of the Body.)

There are numerous complex issues that still emerge from these several accounts. It isn't clear that they even occurred at the same time or place. Matthew and Mark clearly identify a private briefing on the Mount of Olives to the "insider" group of disciples. Luke, on the other hand, remarks:

"And in the day time he was teaching in the Temple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the Temple, for to hear him (Luke 21:36-38)."

Clearly, a side-by-side verse-by-verse study of these passages is essential. To facilitate a more detailed review of these much debated issues, see our briefing package: This Generation: Resolving The Olivet Discourse.

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