HG138b-139pt1 Matthew 23:37-24:3, Mark 13:1-4, Luke 21:5-7 Signs of the times
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37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”
1 Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. 2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him 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 are starting to look at what is called the “Olivet Discourse” in Matthew 24-25 as it is a sermon Jesus preached on the Mount of Olives about His Second Advent and the things leading up to it and beyond it.
Because there is so much here I will also be preaching from the same passages in the evening until we have finished it as I want to slow down and also look at other related passages of Scripture as well as Israel’s place in all this. We’ll see how it goes. When we’ve completed them then we will have one last look at 2 Peter and Jude, that we have been looking at in the evenings, which is also about the Day of the Lord.
Remember that all these sermons are recorded and available on the website. God willing, in the New Year, we will get to grips with the whole subject of Last Things, otherwise known as Eschatology.
Let me start by saying if you know anything about this subject we are unlikely to agree on everything and there have been many viewpoints expressed across the centuries, among churches or, indeed, among individual Christians. A bit of humility goes a long way however I can only preach according to what I believe and I won’t be giving much credence or referral to other viewpoints. This is not the time or place.However, there is one thing that Christians have to agree on and that is that Jesus is coming back and He wins! I’ll repeat that! Jesus is coming back and He wins!
There is too much speculation and obsession about the signs of the times. Whole ministries and lives are based upon these things. Some things may fit the end-time scenario but we are not going to see clearly how all things are going to work out beforehand. We need only be those who lived 30 years ago and nobody would have thought of the internet being on a world-wide scale with individual smart phones, laptops, tablets and so on. To envision how something may happen beforehand is a fools errand though we can hazard a guess at some things and may get a mention.
The return of Jesus is a message of hope for Christians:
28 Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”
Let us not lose sight of this in what is an exciting ans sensationalist passage of Scripture. It is human nature to be of a curious mind but let us be of sound minds too. The future is something that everyone wants to see. What newspaper does not have astrology and zodiacs in them in the form of horoscopes and other predictions? Then there are those pocketing money who claim they can speak with the other side. And then there are the fortune tellers and so-called prophets like Nostradamus. But if we really want to know what is going to happen Scripture has never got it wrong. Not once.
The prophecies spoken hundreds of years beforehand have came true to the letter. Therefore, whatever is still future will also come true to the letter and because of this I take a more straight-forward literal approach to prophecies. There may be prophecies which are more picture language but these are generally explained either right in the passage or elsewhere in Scripture. These are important things to get for how we understand and interpret Scripture will have an effect upon everything else we believe and understand about God, His nature and His purpose. I do think a timeline is set out for us in Scripture and we are going to go through quite a bit of it though this is not a specific study for the whole of the end time scenario.
What started this Sermon of Jesus off were questions from His disciples. In the previous chapter, at the very end of it, we read:
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”
The Jews have rejected Jesus - in just two days time He would be crucified - and despite the fact that Jesus wanted to do good for the nation of Israel - they wanted nothing of it. Indeed John says:
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
And so it is the turn of Jesus. Jesus rejects the nation of Israel. This has got to be heart-breaking to Jesus but He has warned them time and again. There will always be individual Jews who will come to faith in Christ but the chosen nation of Israel has been rejected. Indeed, we know, that as a result of this rejecting God separated a different people, chose a new holy nation, and that is the Church, which, of course, is made up of Jews and Gentiles.
Jesus said their house, not His house, has been left desolate. God has left the house. What is the house? What building had they just left? Was it not the temple? Early on when Jesus was twelve years old He said He had to be working in His Father’s house. Just two days previous He said: “My house shall be called a house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves”. But now the glory had departed. The Jews have a name for this and it is Ichabod.
Now, the disciples wanted to know more. The disciples were enamoured with the building and why wouldn’t they be? It was a massive building complex made from stone, and each individual stone was the size of a giant boulder, in some places 85ft long though most were 40ft by 12ft by 12ft and weigh up to a hundred tons. And this before the day of modern engineering. And the white colour made it stand out as well as its location of a flat plateau on the top of a mountain. You always have to go up to Jerusalem. It was certainly awe-inspiring. The building, by the time it was finished, took 85 years to build.
And then what do we find Jesus say in response to the disciples’ incredulity? Not one stone will be left upon another that shall not be thrown down. Now, here is a prophecy that just seems impossible to happen. Did I say how large the building blocks were?! And how long it took them to build it?! The disciples would have looked at Jesus to say: yeah, right! This incredible, beautiful, dynamic, huge building will be torn down? No way! As I have already said, if a prophecy is fulfilled to the letter, one just before a longer prophecy about Jesus’ return, then we can trust, to the letter all that it says. And history bears it out. In AD70 the Romans invaded and they set fire to the temple. Emperor Titus led the way. He then called his troops to order but his soldiers noticed something about this Temple. Each stone had gold running through the gaps from the heat of the fire. And despite Titus saying leave it the soldiers mutinied and tore down the stones of the temple and it took them the space of about a month to finally tear down the last stone - they earned their wages in gold and other materials. It took rebellion and greed to fulfil what Jesus said to the letter.
Now, before, I get to the rest of this passage, I want us to remind ourselves that there are not always challenges, not always encouragement, not always a practical outworking of the things of Scripture. I think that the things we will hear today and the rest of the time we are looking at these two chapters in particular are encouraging but let us hear what Scripture says about itself:
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The bulk of these two chapters could simply be put under teaching. Jesus thought it necessary to give the details and therefore it is up to us to understand what He is saying.
After the prophecy about the Temple the disciples come and ask Jesus three questions: when shall this be? what is the sign of your coming? and the sign of the end of the age.
Now, we have to understand where the disciples were coming from. All old Testament prophecy conflates Jesus first coming with His second. No one knew that there was two advents let alone any time period between. Paul calls this a mystery and what is this mystery revealed: it is the Church . It was not seen nor understood by anyone until Jesus’ death and resurrection. They thought Jesus, the Messiah, was going to now overthrow the Romans and become King in Jerusalem. They thought when Jesus spoke of the temple that somehow He was going to do these things, like, very soon. So, when they asked Jesus when shall this be they were expecting the answer to be something like Tuesday next week. That was how they understood what was happening. The problem was that Jesus kept saying He was going to die. They did not know how that could fit with things for their Messiah was supposed to live and reign forever.
Then their second question was what is the sign of your coming. Remember they knew nothing about the fact that Jesus was going to go back to Heaven in between. This word ‘coming’ is simply presence. Again, it is simply, when are you going to make your presence felt? And the end of the age was also about seeing off the Romans and bringing in the eternal reign of Christ. So, before long they were going to be in shock.
How does Jesus reply? Not according to how the disciples hoped but in due course they would understand and indeed John and Peter, those present at the sermon, wrote extensively on Jesus’ return in their letters.
Jesus speaks instead of a time of great trouble, something that is called ‘The Tribulation’. Jeremiah speaks of it:
6 Ask now, and see,
Whether a man is ever in labor with child?
So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins
Like a woman in labor,
And all faces turned pale?
7 Alas! For that day is great,
So that none is like it;
And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble,
But he shall be saved out of it.
This prophecy is particularly to the nation of Israel but the whole world will be under judgement. Out of the Tribulation will come a purified Israel who will, at last, recognise their Messiah and come to faith in Him. Indeed, did we not read at the end of Matthew 23 that not only would their house be left desolate it would only be for a period of time for how does the chapter end?
39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”
Who would say that except a saved people? Though two thirds of them die in the Tribulation a remnant will come out of them, a people of God, Israel.
What do I always say about judgement? Grace comes before it. Here Jesus is telling them beforehand what is going to happen so that when it does they have a chance to repent. And, the door is open to the rest of the world too if only they would turn to God. The times described are going to be the worst of times and that time is soon. Though Jesus was rejected at this time there were those and will be those who will receive Him:
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
This evening, then, we will start to go through what is going to happen in not so far distant future, God willing. Come, Lord Jesus!
Benediction
Benediction
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Carr, A. (2015). The Sermon Notebook: New Testament. Lenoir, NC: Alan Carr.
Davies, W. D., & Allison, D. C., Jr. (2004). A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (Vol. 3). London; New York: T&T Clark International.
Elwell, W. A. (1995). Evangelical Commentary on the Bible (Vol. 3). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Geisler, N. L. (2005). Systematic theology, volume four: church, last things. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.
Grudem, W. A. (2004). Systematic theology: an introduction to biblical doctrine. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Panorama City, CA: Grace to You.
McCune, R. (2010). A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity: The Doctrines of Salvation, the Church, and Last Things (Vol. 3). Allen Park, MI: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
O’Donnell, D. S. (2013). Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Rogers, A. (2017). Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive. Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 13:54 05 October 2019.