[Darris McNeely] Imagine yourself sitting with Christ and His disciples at the Mount of Olives in the scene that we have here in Matthew 24:3 where they were sitting on the Mount of Olives. The disciples came to Jesus privately saying, "Tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Today we're beginning a new series on our BT Dailies on Bible prophecy and you. We want to go through some of the fundamentals of Bible prophecy that is on everyone's mind and help you understand better what Bible prophecy is and how you should understand it and how you should read it. Probably the best place to begin is right here with this verse because two items are mentioned. Christ coming—they ask when will be the signs of Your coming. And what will be the end of the age? And unfortunately people take this particular statement here and they twist it and turn it around and they misunderstand exactly what Christ—well, what was meant by the question of the end of the age.

[Steve Myers] Yeah, so many times people associate that with the end of world, but that is not what that phrase is all about. The disciples were asking about the time of man's rule. So if we divided this up, this present time verses the time of your coming, and that seems to delineate what they're talking about. Ephesians 1:21 talks about this where it says, talking about Christ he says that He's "far above all principalities, power, might and dominion." And then Paul writes, "Every name that's named not only in this age, but also in that which is to come." So Paul was talking about two different things here when you looked at it—the time that's now, and we could say that this is now, and then this is the time to come, the time in the future.

[Darris McNeely] Two ages.

[Steve Myers] Two times. And so we have this delineation between now and what's in the future and here is Your coming.

[Darris McNeely] Right. If you look at several scriptures that I think really illustrate this, one is in Galatians 1:4 where the Apostle Paul was writing again about the Lord Jesus Christ, "Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present, evil age according to the will of our God and our Father." So, Galatians 1:4, "This present, evil age" that is talked about here. So, God's word defines this present age now as an evil period of time that is at some point going to come to an end with the coming of Jesus Christ. '

[Steve Myers] And so we see that pretty clearly that now we're living in an evil age. We're living in a time that is dominated by spiritual wickedness. Throughout the Bible it talks about the god of this age. And that's an interesting passage—that refers to Satan himself is the god of now, the god of this age. But in the time to come, man's rule, Satan's rule is going to be put to an end. And it will be the time that Jesus Christ establishes His Kingdom right here on earth. And so 2 Corinthians 4:4 is that particular passage that refers to the god of this age.

[Darris McNeely] If you look really at what the disciples asked of Jesus, they said what will be the signs of Your coming? Now, signs will be something we'll cover in a number of our future additions of this important series right out of Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation. But they wanted to know the signs that would predate the coming of Jesus Christ. That is probably—that is certainly for the future prophecy a key benchmark, Christ's second coming because it will then signal the end of this age and the beginning of the age to come. And I think the most important thing for us to understand at this point is that the Bible is really talking about, Christ was talking about the end of an age, not the end of the world, not the end of human life. That's the stuff of Hollywood movies, science fiction, and apocalyptic literature that leaves people without really any hope. The Bible and Bible prophecy is the message of hope. And that is really at the heart of the question the disciples put to Christ when they wanted to know when He would return, the signs of His coming, and of the end of this age—an age of suffering, ruled over by the god of this age, an evil period of time where evil reigns, where suffering is, and the dawning of a new age to come, an age of happiness, of peace, and an age when God's rule will be on this earth.

[Steve Myers] Much more to talk about with this subject. We'll see you down the line on BT Daily.