What Jesus Taught Us About the Present Age

Posted on Jan 24, 2019 Topic : Men's Christian Living, Prophecy
Posted by : Ron Rhodes

Jesus spoke prophetically about the course of the present age. In Matthew 13, He provided insights to His followers as to what the course of the present age would be like up till the time of His second coming. Jesus provided these insights in the form of parables.

The word parable means “a placing alongside of” for the purpose of comparison. A parable is a teaching tool. Jesus often told a story from real life—involving, for example, a woman who lost a coin, or a shepherd watching over sheep, or a worker in a vineyard—and used that story to illustrate some particular spiritual truth.

By taking such a story and “placing it alongside” a spiritual truth, Jesus helped His followers to understand His spiritual teachings more clearly. As an example, His story of the good shepherd helps us to understand that Jesus watches over us and guides us, just as a shepherd watches over and guides sheep.

Other parables that provide us insights on the course of the present age are as follows:

The parable of the sower teaches that this age will be characterized by the sowing of the gospel seed onto different kinds of soil (Matthew 13:1-23). This reveals that there will be various kinds of responses to the gospel, including opposition to the gospel from the world, the flesh, and the devil.
The parable of the tares indicates that the true sowing of the gospel seed will be imitated by a false counter-sowing (Matthew 13:24-30). Only a judgment following the future tribulation period will separate the “wheat” (true believers) from the “weeds” (unbelievers, or false believers).
The parable of the mustard seed indicates that God’s spiritual kingdom would have an almost imperceptible beginning—hardly even noticeable. But just as a small mustard seed can produce a large plant (it can grow up past 15 feet high), so God’s spiritual kingdom would start small but grow to be very large in the world by the time of the second coming (Matthew 13:31-32).
The parable of the hidden treasure has been interpreted in various ways by biblical scholars (Matthew 13:44). Many believe Jesus was pointing to the incredible value of the true kingdom of heaven, as opposed to counterfeit belief systems (such as the cults and false religions that are so prominent in our day). Those who truly see the kingdom’s importance will do anything within their power to possess it. They will allow nothing to stand in their way.
In the parable of the net (Matthew 13:47-50), Jesus indicated that up until the second coming, when judgment will take place, there will be both genuine Christians and phony (professing) Christians that coexist within the kingdom. At the end of the age, there will be a separation of the righteous from the unrighteous, just as good fish are separated from bad fish caught in a net. The righteous (that is, true believers) will be invited into Christ’s kingdom, while the unrighteous (professing believers who are actually unbelievers) will be excluded from His kingdom and sent to a place of suffering (see Matthew 25:31-46).

We conclude from these (and other) parables that Jesus’s prophetic teachings address not only the more distant end times, but also describe the religious landscape in the many centuries that precede the end times. Jesus, as God, was omnisciently able to see the entire panoramic sweep of human history, right up till the end.