Jesus says that the world to come after His death, burial, and resurrection faced a barrage of false Christs, false teachers, false messiahs, false prophets, interspersed with wars, rumors of wars, ethnic strife, and persecutions of God’s people. That is history from Christ’s perspective.
By the way, just what He said came true. The Temple was destroyed in AD 70 just as He said. History since AD 70 has been just what He said it would be. That is the introduction to Rev. 6-19. All the disasters mankind has ever faced roll on until the period when each type of disaster is magnified to the point everyone on earth feels the horror, not just a localized disaster as in the past.
History, as taught by Jesus, can be summarized as the period between His first and second coming will be nothing but relentless troubles, that will eventually reach the point of never before seen disasters globally. Plus a background of religious deception that will also get more and more powerful until all but the elect are deceived. Note that this theme is repeated four times: v. 4, 5, 11, 24.
Jesus Gives the Only True Map of the Future
The lesson Jesus gave them and us is that when you are trying to understand the plan of God for the future, don’t listen to people that misrepresent God’s Word and try to deceive people into things God has not said. Whether it is the occultic induced words of the 16th Century mystic Nostradamus, or the misguided predictions of the 21st Century Harold Camping. Avoid anyone who twists, distorts, or goes against the clear plan of God written down in His Word.
Jesus said also especially beware of those who claim to be Christ. There have been many false christs over the centuries. Even in modern times from Sung Myung Moon who founded the Moonies, to David Koresh of the 1993 Branch Davidians: we have many who claim to be Messiah or the Christ.
For a moment look at v. 24 and let me explain what many of us haven’t really thought about: the connection of Islam with the events of the Tribulation. Jesus said there will always be false prophets, and we clearly think of Hinduism as false, and Buddhism as false. But in recent times, so called Christian voices are saying that Islam is actually not false because they believe in the same God as we do, and even believe in Jesus.
Beware of False Christs
Many believers aren’t aware of how much Islam does teach about Jesus. The growing idea among some branches of Christianity today is that the way to save the world is to get all religions together, starting with Muslims because they already believe in Jesus. One well know professor from the Christian Left named Tony Campolo even wrote:
“When we listen to the Muslim mystics as they talk about Jesus and their love for Jesus, I must say it’s a lot closer to New Testament Christianity than a lot of Christians.”
Aphorism CITY 