God prepares us for the overwhelming greatness and glory of Christ's return. He wants you and me to know what is going to happen, that this amazing text, verses 29-31, has not yet been fulfilled in its literal sense, but that it will be. And when it is fulfilled, there will be no question, no debate, no confusion, because Christ will come, the heavens will be shaken, the unrighteous will know that judgment has come upon them, and those of us who are believers will experience rapture or resurrection from the dead. Our Lord is instructing and preparing us for the coming of this event.

In these verses, God gives a clear warning that anyone who rejects Christ will be left with nothing in the end. This warning was given to the Jewish leaders, to the Jews who followed them, to the entire Jewish system which was officially rejecting Christ, and ultimately it is given to us today.

There is a truth in this passage that is for every person no matter who you are or where you live or when you live. With all of the events and descriptions that Jesus gives us of His return, and with all of the questions that we may have about the events leading up to it, one overarching truth stands out in this passage- God declares that when Christ returns, everyone will know it.

In these verses, God tells us how He wants us to face the end of the age. Jesus was giving us an overview or a summary of what would come first leading up to the end of the age, but He wanted His disciples - all of us - to know how to live, how to face all of the things that will happen - that have happened and that are yet to happen.

Believers must not participate in evil, but must also expose evil. We must rightly expose evil in our own lives, in the church, in our nation, and in the world.

We have the very same pride in our hearts the Pharisees did that puts on pretenses in order to cover up our own unbelief, or our belief in the wrong things. God condemns prideful pretense that hides false spirituality.

The message of this text is not complicated- God condemns all who are religious on the outside but who are in rebellion on the inside. He condemns that kind of duplicity that puts on a religious mask, pretending to be spiritually healthy in public, but whose attitudes and actions in private are continuously and egregiously sinful. The word for such duplicity is -hypocrisy.-

Through this amazing record of God's announcement to Mary of the coming virgin birth of the Lord Jesus, God declares the impossible. And God calls you and me to trust Him to do the impossible regarding our salvation.

The message of our Lord in these verses is really very simple- God calls all people to integrity and truthfulness at all times. And if anyone should be truthful and an example of honoring one's word, it should be believers.