Verse of the Day – May 26, 2026
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. — Matthew 24:4
Our usual sections for the verse of the day will be present but brief today, as this single verse is the opening word of one of the most significant – and most misunderstood – passages in all of scripture. Matthew 24 deserves more than a devotional glance. So we are going to give it one.
What’s Happening Here
Jesus has just left the temple in Jerusalem for the last time. His disciples, still processing His words about the temple’s coming destruction, pull Him aside on the Mount of Olives and ask Him two questions: when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age?
His first word in answer is not a timeline, or a sign. It is a warning.
Take heed that no man deceive you.
Before He says anything else about what is coming, He tells them what to watch out for first. Not wars. Not famines. Not earthquakes. Deception. The very first thing out of His mouth in response to their question about the end is a command to guard against being misled about it.
That is not an accident.
The Word
Blepete – “take heed,” or “watch out,” or “see to it.” Present imperative. Continuous, ongoing, active vigilance. Not a one-time check. A posture. Eyes open, all the time.
Planēsē – “deceive,” from planaō, meaning to cause to wander, to lead astray, to cause someone to roam off the right path. It is the root of our word “planet,” because the ancients observed that planets seemed to wander against the fixed stars. To be deceived in this sense is to be set wandering – off course, off truth, off the path – often without realizing it is happening.
Mēdeis – “no man,” or “no one.” Not just obvious false teachers. Not just the ones who announce themselves as frauds. No one.
The combination is stark. Jesus is not saying be careful about some people. He is saying the deception coming will be broad enough, convincing enough, and sophisticated enough that the default posture of the believer must be active, ongoing discernment – not credulity, not suspicion, but clear-eyed, Spirit-led watchfulness.
The World Then
The Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24 and 25) was delivered around 30 AD, just days before the crucifixion. The disciples were asking about the temple, a building Herod the Great had spent decades enlarging and beautifying into one of the wonders of the ancient world. Jesus had just said not one stone of it would be left on another.
The temple was destroyed by Rome in 70 AD, exactly as Jesus described. The city was besieged, the population slaughtered or enslaved, the building dismantled. Jewish historian Josephus recorded the horror in graphic detail. It was one of the most catastrophic events in Jewish history.
The theological debate that has occupied scholars ever since is whether Matthew 24 refers entirely to 70 AD, entirely to a future end-times event, or – most likely – both, with the destruction of the temple serving as a near-term fulfillment that also foreshadows a larger, final fulfillment yet to come. This interpretive lens, called the “already and not yet,” or a dual-fulfillment reading, makes the most sense of the passage as a whole and the one we will work from here.
Matthew 24: The Whole Picture
What follows is not a date-setter’s roadmap. Jesus Himself says clearly in verse 36 that no one knows the day or the hour, not even the angels, not even the Son in His earthly state – only the Father. If you’ve read any of my previous end times prophecy posts, you won’t find anything different regarding my stance on that here. Anyone claiming to have cracked the code on exact timing has not read carefully enough, and is not being honest.
What Matthew 24 is, is a portrait. It is a description of conditions, patterns, and events that will characterize the period leading up to and culminating in the return of Christ. And the portrait is worth not just noticing but knowing, not to satisfy curiosity, but because Jesus said: take heed. You cannot take heed of something you have never studied.
The signs Jesus names:
False Christs and false prophets (v.5, 11, 24). This is not simply one sign among many. It bookends the entire passage. Jesus returns to it three separate times. Many will come in His name. Many will claim to speak for Him. Many will perform signs and wonders convincing enough that, Jesus says, they would deceive even the elect if that were possible. The volume and sophistication of spiritual counterfeiting is itself one of the primary markers of the season.
Wars and rumors of wars (v.6-7). Nations rising against nations, kingdoms against kingdoms. Jesus says explicitly: do not be alarmed. These things are necessary, and they are not the end, but the beginning, of birth pains. The imagery of labor is intentional – contractions that increase in frequency and intensity as the moment approaches. I spoke about this at length in the Earthquakes, Famines, and Pestilences section of my “Why I Believe We Are Living in the End Times” post, including the Isaiah 66:7-8 connection and Israel as the mother metaphor.
Famines and earthquakes (v.7). Signs in the natural world, increasing in scope. Birth pains again.
Persecution of believers (v.9). The church will be handed over, hated by all nations, for the sake of His name. This is not hypothetical in most of the world right now. It is the daily reality for millions of Christians in nations where professing faith carries a death sentence.
Widespread falling away (v.10-12). People will turn from faith. They will betray one another. False prophets will multiply. And then the most chilling line of all for any born again believer: because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of most will grow cold. The love of most, even within the community of those who call themselves believers. Lawlessness – the rejection of God’s standard, the erosion of moral and doctrinal accountability – does not just affect behavior. It cools the heart. It dims the fire. It produces a version of Christianity that is indistinguishable from the surrounding culture because it has absorbed the surrounding culture’s values and called them grace. We see it blatantly in the infiltration of new age thought into Christianity and churches today (read my thoughts on that here, in my in-depth post “Dear Christians… | You Must Employ Discernment in the Mainstream Church”).
The gospel preached to all nations (v.14). Before the end, the message goes everywhere. “And then the end will come.” This is an anchoring promise for the global mission of the church, and it reframes everything. The church is not waiting passively. It is actively participating in what must happen before He returns.
The abomination of desolation (v.15). Jesus refers His listeners back to Daniel, specifically Daniel 9:27 and 12:11. A figure stands in a holy place where he does not belong and commits a desecration that triggers what Jesus calls the great tribulation – a period of distress unlike anything in human history before or after it. This is where interpretation diverges significantly across theological traditions, and a longer treatment deserves its own post. What matters here is that Jesus points back to Daniel intentionally, anchoring the end-times narrative in the prophetic framework already given to Israel centuries before.
The coming of the Son of Man (v.27-31). When He comes, it will not be subtle. It will not be a quiet spiritual event visible only to the initiated. It will be like lightning from east to west. Every eye will see. The sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. The tribes of the earth will mourn. He will come on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and His angels will gather His elect from the four winds.
There will be no mistaking it. Which means that anything presented as His return that requires special knowledge, insider access, or spiritual sensitivity to perceive… isn’t.
On a personal note, I am watching every day. Jesus’ returning is the hope and joy of my heart. Honestly, I can’t wait, and I pray I experience this, rather than physical death. I’ve experienced enough of that. Maranatha!
The call to watchfulness:
Verses 36 through 44 are among the most personally applicable in the passage. No one knows the day or the hour. Life will be continuing normally – eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage – right up until the moment it isn’t, just as in the days of Noah. Two people in a field; one taken, one left. Two women grinding; one taken, one left.
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. — Matthew 24:42
The posture Jesus calls the church to is not anxious date-setting. It is not terrified paralysis. It is not willful ignorance either. It is the posture of a household whose master is away on a journey and could return at any moment – attentive, faithful, doing the work, not caught off guard and not caught living as though He is never coming back.
The Living Edge
We are living in a moment when the signs Jesus described are not difficult to locate. I tend to be in awe at those who can’t see this for what it is, as it is truly right in front of our faces. False teaching within the church has not been a fringe problem, but a mainstream and very active one, for some time now. Lawlessness – the systematic dismantling of the idea that God’s word carries binding moral authority – has moved from the culture into the pulpit. Love has grown cold in exactly the way Jesus described: not through obvious apostasy but through the slow absorption of a framework that elevates comfort, affirmation, and relevance above truth.
Wars and rumors of wars are not abstract. The Middle East is in a configuration that students of biblical prophecy have been watching with recognition: Iran, which scripture calls Persia, openly threatening Israel’s existence while pursuing nuclear capability. The nations named in Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38 are present and active on the geopolitical stage in ways they have not been in the same alignment before.
And false prophets are not hiding. They are on platforms with millions of followers, performing signs and wonders, claiming fresh revelation that subtly or not so subtly overwrites what the scripture actually says.
Jesus did not give us Matthew 24 to frighten us. He gave it to us so we would not be deceived. So we would recognize the season. So we would keep watch without panic, hold truth without cruelty, and remain faithful without exhaustion.
Again, I repeat what I said at the beginning of this post: the first word Jesus gave when they asked Him about the end was not a sign. It was a command.
Take heed. Watch. See to it that no one leads you off the path.
He said that first because He knew it would matter most.
A Closing Thought
The disciples asked Jesus two questions on the Mount of Olives. He answered both. But He started somewhere they did not expect – not with what to watch for in the sky, but with what to watch for in the room.
Watch well. He meant it when He said it, and He is closer than most people are willing to believe.
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