The Signs of the Times By Paris Reidhead*
Will you turn please to Matthew, Chapters 23, 24, and 25. Now if I should read this as a Scripture reading, all we would need as
a conclusion would be the Benediction; so I shan't do that. Perhaps that might give great profit. Today with all of the events
transpiring, and all the pressures that are upon us, God’s people have a right to say, “Watchman tell us of the night, what its
signs of coming are.” (Isa. 21:11) This has been the cry down through the ages, and it is the cry again today when we see the
head of one of the largest nations in the world take his shoe and beat the desk in contempt for organized diplomacy. All we
can say is, if that same virulent should ever be expressed around the switchboard of intercontinental ballistic missiles, it might
be a different matter. And so the question before us tonight is, What Are The Signs of the Times? What does the Word of God
have to say regarding the hour in which we live?
When I was a young man in Bible School, beginning my training and first Pastoral ministry, there was a great deal of preaching
on prophecy. I remember one dear fellow, in fact my father was saved through his ministry, and he was very dear to the family,
but he majored on startling sermon titles and prophetic utterances. And I recall back in 1933 that 43 seemed such a long way
off, and using the pyramid in the Scriptures he endeavored to show what was going to transpire in ‘43 and ‘47, and ‘51 and ‘53,
and everything was to have had reached its consummation and all would be over. Well happily the Lord cut short his days and
he left and went to be with the Lord long before he had the opportunity of seeing that so many of the utterances he made
lacked that quality of authenticity that is demanded of the Prophet. I have no prophecies to utter tonight. I have no schedule
to set forth. I am not going to correct the headlines in the paper, nor do I have any intention at all of telling you what
Khrushchev is going to do. I was very amused at dear Major Allister Smith who was the means of such blessing, standing out on
47th Street in front of the Salvation Army Citadel there, or the Salvation Army Hall, in the street meeting. And he said, “Now
you come on into the Service because I am going to tell you what the Bible has to say about Khrushchev.” And quite a company
came in. And so he said, “The first thing the Bible says about Khrushchev is that he is a man. The second thing it says is that he
is a sinful man, because all have sinned. And the third thing it says is that he is a fool, because a fool has said in his heart there
is no God.” And then he went ahead and preached the Gospel. Well I am sure that is appropriated right, but it is about all you
can find the Bible has to say about Khrushchev I am sure.
But I am concerned that you should understand that the Word of God has not left without guide or light in these days. We do
not need to be like that dear man who in 1944, 43 or 4, had an article in one of the national magazines entitled, “Mussolini is
the Anti-Christ.” But before the article which had been accepted for publication could get actually into type and into press
Mussolini was hanging by his heels in a filling station in Milan. And when I saw that I am sure that any incipient desire I had to
be a prophetic teacher died the death right there. And I am sure that it has not had a great deal of revival since.
But having said all of that, and all the qualifications that I am prepared to offer, and all the disclaimers that I suggest, I still
come back to you and say, “God's Word has something to say about the hour in which we live, and it gives us a guide and a
measuring stick of the events that are transpiring before our eyes.” And now, if you are open as I have asked to Matthew the
24th Chapter, I am going to ask you to look to the 23rd. There will be just a few things that I will lift out of the 23rd Chapter.
Our Lord had now come to that phase in His ministry where He no longer was polite to the Pharisees and the Scribes and the
Sadducees and the Lawyers. The virulence of their hatred of God has found in the heart of God that righteous wrath, not such
as yours or mine perhaps might be from personality peak and just being disconsolate and irrationally angry, but our Lord with
all the wisdom of the Triune God at His disposal says in the 13th verse of the 23rd Chapter, “Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye
them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a
pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than
yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall
swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that
sanctifieth the gold?” And verse 23, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithes of mint and anise and
cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not
to leave the other undone.” Verse 25. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the
cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.” Verse 27. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s
bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the
sepulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in
the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the
prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation
of hell?”
No stronger words had ever been addressed by any man to another group than these. And someone speaks of the meek and
lowly Nazarene? But they have the opportunity through these words of seeing something of the wrath of the Lamb. For you
see how He has perceived into the heart, and judged not the outward actions and the outward appearance, but judged the
attitudes and the motives of individuals. And because of this, we find that He has this to say in the 37th verse, 36th verse:
“Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,
and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not
see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord. And Jesus went out, and departed from
the temple: and His disciples came to Him for to shew Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all
these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And
our Lord has indicted the religious leaders of His generation, He has exposed the putrid selfishness of their hearts, He has
uncovered the crimes of Israel in its long revolt against God, and He has now pronounced His final sentence and judgment
upon the temple which has harbored the vipers of iniquity, and upon the city in which the temple has been built. And
judgment now has been pronounced by the Lord Jesus. You must bear this in mind. He is acting in perfect accord with the
moral attitude and character of the people of His day, and of His generation. And He has predicted judgment upon the
individuals. He has now predicted the destruction of the temple. He has held His hands out in the wail of rejected longing
toward the city of Jerusalem, and later we will have more to say concerning its destruction.
The disciples hearing these things, hearing the strong words that He says against the religious leaders of Israel, sensing that
there is a complete break with them, knowing that in their own thinking at least the Messiah would be dependent upon the
support of these religious leaders, the disciples I say come to Him as He is seated upon the Mount of Olives. They approach
Him privately as a group, saying in verse 3, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and
of the end of the world?” Three pertinent questions are addressed by the disciples to the Lord Jesus. Our Lord’s collision with
arrogant, rebellious Judaism had caused God to pronounce these judgments upon Israel. Our Lord’s threatening concerning
the temple, and concerning Jerusalem, had stirred within the hearts of the disciple’s expectancy, amazement, fear, grief, and
they wanted the Lord to explain whether He was speaking in parables or He was actually pronouncing the kind of judgment
that His Word seemed to imply. And so the questions that they have are addressed to Him alone as a group for their pleading
they are pleading for personal and special information. Tell us, when these things shall be? When is the temple going to be
torn down? When are the Pharisees and the scribes, that you have called whited sepulchers and hypocrites, when are they
going to be judged? When is Jerusalem going to be destroyed? Tell us when these things shall be.
Then the second thing. “What shall be the sign of Thy coming?” And then, “What shall be the sign of the end of the world?”
These three questions are related to three separate items of interest, three separate events in the chronology of God. First, tell
us when these things shall be. This concerns the destruction of the temple. This was to transpire during their lifetime. This they
were to see and behold. What of the coming of Christ? What shall be the sign of Thy coming? You are coming again, You said.
When are you coming? And in what manner are you coming? How will we know that You are coming? And then they separate
the coming of Christ with the end of the age. What shall be the sign of the end of the age? The three questions then before us
tonight, as we have it in the Text are, what portion of this Scripture refers to that which did transpire historically in the lifetime
of the disciples? What portion of it refers to the return of Christ? And, what portion of it refers to the end of the age? The
prophetic replies of the Lord Jesus that we find given in this portion from verse 4 on through verse 13 of the 25th Chapter are
the Lord’s guide to you and to me for the history, and for the future. For in this our Lord has given to us the yardstick by which
we can gauge the day in which we live as well as the future that is before us.
The first thing our Lord Jesus says in verses, beginning with verse 4 is that the entire Church age will be characterized by the
appearance of false Christs. “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in My Name, saying, I am Christ; and
shall deceive many. This has happened. It happened at the time of our Lord. It happened shortly after His resurrection and
ascension that there were pretenders that came and said they were the Christ. It happened previous to the destruction of
Jerusalem. There are historical records of those that came saying they were Christ, having returned. It has been happening on
down across through the ages, and even to the present you find cults and groups that are preaching Christ, but not the Christ
of the Bible. A Christ, but not the Christ of revelation. How many times someone will come to the door with literature that they
want to sell. And you say, “Do you believe in Jesus?” “O yes, we believe in Him.” “Do you preach Jesus?” “O yes, we preach
Him.” “Who is Jesus?” And then you begin to listen to their involved explanations as to who, what Jesus they are preaching.
And almost invariably it seems, with the cults at least (and there are those who know and love our Lord that knock our doors
and do not for a moment think I am criticizing this procedure) but they will –with the cults you can always tell whether they are
preaching the Christ of the Bible or another Christ by asking them to identify the Lord Jesus. Who is He? There is only one
proper answer. John said, there would be many anti-Christs; many that would come in the Name of Christ but actually would
be opposed to Him. And there would be many that would claim to have inspired utterance and power gifts that they had
received from Christ, but you could always tell because there was one proper answer. There is only one answer to the
question, Who is Jesus. And that is, Jesus is God come in the flesh. The God-Man. He is very God of very God, and very man of
very man. God who became flesh and dwelt among us. How involved, how subtle are the attempts to escape this and avoid it,
and wriggle out from under it, but you check with so many of the cults and you will find that at this point you will have to
conclude that they are preaching another Jesus. And is it not amazing the way they have deceived many. Many of you have
seen the book, Watchtower Slaves, written by this dear man that had spent some 30 years. The book is in the Bookstore. But
when you let him speak to you concerning the fallacies that are propagated in the Name of Jesus, and the distortions that are
presented, you begin to realize that there are people that are being educated in the subtitles of reasoning to deceive the elect,
and try to get you involved with one of the cults. You ask someone that comes to your door with literature, stands on the
street, “What were you before you joined this group?” And almost invariably they say, “Well I was a Methodist, or I was a
Baptist, or I belonged to this Church, or I belonged to that Church.” Whether of course I couldn’t want to say there are not
some that have been born again in the groups that have been deceived, for it is said the very elect should be, but I would say
this, that our Lord warned us saying, that there would come and all through the church period, as long as the church was in the
earth, there would come those that would preach another Jesus than the one of the Bible.
Then our Lord Jesus also declared that there would be troubles and snares, and wars for the entire Church period. “Ye shall
hear of wars and rumors of wars.” This was not to characterize any particular time. It was not to be something that happened
at, (Well I have been told. I have not checked it myself. But I have been told that there is - since the time of Christ as far as we
can figure out only seven years when there has not been a war going on.) Oh I just think it was lack of communications, or they
surely would have found something that was very much of a war with some of the primitive tribes. So I just have a feeling that
wars and rumors of wars have characterized the age from the very first. And so this is going to continue. When they say, they
tell us that there will come a time through machinery of diplomacy and world government when there will be no more war,
there is only one thing I can say to that, it is not what the Lord said. It is not what the Lord said. Until He returns, until He
comes back again as the prince of peace, until He Himself shall establish His throne and put down the governments of men and
reign in His own splendor, there will be wars and rumors of wars, and certainly that characterizes our lifetime. Many of you
were born before or during the First World War; many of you remember with what trepidation and fear, we saw the rise of
Hitler. Remember how that Hindenburg of Germany was voted out of office as president, and the chancellor became this
former paper hanger, and saw the rise of nationalism and saw its development and it’s unfolding, and then saw the world
plunged into war. Then remember Pearl Harbor. I was with a group of College students a while ago, and I said, “Now you
remember Pearl Harbor. And you remember...Adolph Hitler.” And the youth students looked at me as much as to say,
“Remember? No. We have read about it.” And then I realized that young people are in College, freshmen and sophomores,
that had not even been born by the time of Pearl Harbor, didn’t know, have never lived during the lifetime consciously aware
of the fact that there were such characters in the earth as Mussolini and Hitler. But for some of us who date ourselves and say,
“Yes, we remember this,” we realize that our whole lifetime has grown up under this overspreading cloud of a threatening
tornado of war. And this has real meaning to us. “Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars,” (Matt. 24:6a) but notice what He
says: “See that ye be not troubled. 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.”(Matt. 24:6b-8)
Now I have some very earnest friends that would like to have me and you believe that this has reference to the Great War, the
First World War, which was said to be the first war of world outreach where it did involve the entire western part of the world
at least. I do not know that that is the case. I do not suppose that it would be possible for us to prove that there have been
more famines at that time than there were before; pestilences. I do not think that I could sustain as a logical argument that
there have been more earthquakes since 1914. I do not believe I could. But you know there was something that transpired
then when down in Serbia there was an assassination that drew the world into a vortex of carnage, lasted for four years and
took so many, well unnumbered thousands of lives. Something happened. There has been a change since then. Pestilence -
you realize of course there was one of the outgrowths of that war that led to the invasion of Russia by the Communists. And
certainly there has been a Red pestilence that has grown out, that has been like a creeping disease that has just gone from
Nation to Nation, and Country to Country, until today one half of the world’s people are under the hammer and sickle, under
the Red Star of Russia. I do not know that I can find Communism in the Bible from any of the prophetic pictures that we have in
Revelation. It would be awfully hard for anyone to prove that and you can see an analogy and from the analogy you can say,
“Well this seems to be like that.” But when you think of the 2nd World War where there was not a Country that was immune
to it, where there was not a Continent that was not involved in it in some way, and the skies themselves rained down hail, and
when there were - the eagles of the sky that had stingers in their tail. I remember hearing a very elaborate sermon one time on
the fact that these great scorpions that were in the sky were the B26 Bombers, the tail gunners. Well I would not want to argue
that that is not the case.
But I do know this, that the world is so small today that it can be encircled in thirty six hours and even faster by some of our
supersonic planes, and we are in the place now that when somebody hammers a desk here in New York, people tremble over
in Japan. And they are frightened. The world is so small, almost linked by television. Certainly linked by telephone. Reduced
down in size until it is here just in the palm of men’s hands, and now we are invading outer space. “Wars and rumors of wars.”
Then He says that there shall come a great tribulation that will close the end of this age. They shall deliver you up to be
afflicted and shall kill you, and you shall be hated of all nations for My Name’s sake, and then shall many be offended and shall
betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And because
iniquity shall a bound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. I think
this characterizes our day. Look at it for just a moment. They shall deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you. Ye shall be
hated of all nations for My Name’s sake, and shall be offended and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And
because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Yes, this is happening. To say that it is happening in some
unique sense, more than any other day, I think is perfectly safe. Think of what is happening to the children in China, as we are
getting word out now. How little children in schools are being told by their teachers that it is patriotism, it is honor, it is the
means of proving their devotion to the State, to report on the religious habits of their parents, Think of what is happening
when a little child stands in the presence of the Judge and says, I saw, I saw my mother pray. I saw her read the Bible, and
accuses the parent in such a way that the parent is now forced to die, and the child stands by with such distortion of natural
affection that he is proud of the fact that he has eliminated from the society this enemy, this follower of the imperialist West;
and the child has been the means of causing the parents’ death. This is happening. We are told by the Communists in China
themselves that 20 million people have been in the nice way it is being phrased deprived of existence. And only the Lord
Himself knows how many of these have come about from just such a thing as you have here, being betrayed, being betrayed.
In one case, in one of the tribes in South China, they asked for Bibles. And appeal went into Shanghai. The people brought
Bibles, and they said, come and get them. But names were taken of everyone that took a Bible. Within a month or six weeks
the Bibles were called in, and the people who had them were brought in. The Bibles were burned. The ashes were mixed with
water. And the people then were forced to drink the water in which the burned Bibles, the ashes of the burned Bibles were
mixed, to show that they were holding in utter contempt this Book that had been the means of life to them. And great
imprisonment. Their ears were cut off for listening to preaching. Their tongues were cut out for speaking of Jesus Christ. Their
lives were taken because they refused to recant, and deny the Lord that bought them. Has it been this way in the past? I do not
suppose that there has ever been such a time when there has been such terrible hatred, when governments have so
systematically committed themselves to atheism as we have now. I think in a sense this is unique. I find nothing like it, though
there were periods of intense persecution under the Romans, but these were sporadic and temporary. But here since 1917, 42
or 3 years, there has been this insistence upon atheism as the very foundation of society.
Now young men and women, older men and women as well, this is the kind of an age we live in. The Lord Jesus said it would
happen, but here is something else He said: “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matt. 24:12)
I was amazed to receive a report over my desk a few weeks ago, a report from a group that had made a study of the un-
churched population in America. You know that we have approximately, (these are rough figures), 95 million people identified
with some Church, some organization, some religious fellowship, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or one of the Cults, one or the
other groups. Well 90 to 95 million are identified with some religion. But we find that the present, the predictions are, that for
the present census our population will approximate 180 million. That leaves very nearly 90 million that are totally un-churched.
Now in our well-meaning and sincere desire to think all is well, I would have told you six months or a year ago that that un-
churched proportion of our population were just apathetic, and indifferent, and unconcerned. But this report that has been
made by qualified observers who are on solid ground in what they have said shows us that this un-churched population in
America are not apathetic or indifferent, but for the most part at least the largest half, the largest proportion of that un-
churched population showed definite signs and indications of anger and virulence toward religion. And they were particularly
angry with fundamental Protestants, and the most virulent and the most vicious were the children that had grown up in
fundamental Protestant homes and had renounced their faith and were now engaged in individual, unorganized, not
organized, but individual campaigns as it were in opposition to fundamental evangelical Biblical Christianity. And they said,
they are obscurantists, they stand in the way of progress, they are creating terrible frustrations by their moral standards, they
are intimidating the rest of the population, they ought to be controlled, they ought to to be eliminated for the wellbeing of our
national culture. And then some of them would cite, “Was it not this group that succeeded in getting the 18th Amendment
enacted. Was it not this group that plunged the Nation into the carnage of the prohibition days?” And we thought, I thought,
and a year ago I would have affirmed that the un-churched American population were just indifferent to the church. Now, they
are not. They are antagonistic. Antagonistic. And this is what we find here. This is what is said. And therefore to this degree we
begin to see it take place.
Now I said, beginning with verse 15 we find that He makes it absolutely clear that the great tribulation will close this age.
“When therefore, ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso
readeth. let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not
come down to take anything out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe
unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter,
neither on the Sabbath day: 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.” (Matt. 24:15-22)
Now I personally see that this has a double application. First, in its primary sense it refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, and
the tribulation that was there effected, for we are told by Josephus and other historians that when Vespasian and Titus had
conquered Jerusalem after the long siege, that they were so angry with the Jews that had held out so long, that at one time
around on the hills outside of Jerusalem there was not room to raise another cross. There were so many crosses up that they
could not raise one down and nail a person to it and raise it up. There was not room. We know that at that time there were
those that escaped. When these things come to pass, seeing the Roman Armies gather there outside of Jerusalem, they fled
into the hills, went to Petra, went into the rocks, went into the caves, and it had, I think this portion had, an initial fulfillment at
the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. But you notice He also says this, that there shall be great tribulation such as there
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.
Now there is a great deal of discussion in the church about the great tribulation. Oh how my dear friends, and I love them all,
love them both, get all excited. One of them says, “Will the church go through the tribulation? And, Won’t.” And the other one
says, “Will the church go through the tribulation? And, Will.” And then they come to me and say, “Take sides.” And I cannot
take sides because I have to know what they are talking about. Who originates the tribulation? If the tribulation begins with
men, and the wicked hearts of men, and the wicked hearts of men, and is poured out by men upon the church, there is no
reason to expect God to keep the church out of it. There is nothing in the Scripture that said, that the church will not endure
the wrath and anger of men. And so, if my friends that are so enthusiastic on this, will tell me just from whom they believe this
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