Search the Scriptures, March 4

Matthew 24:1-31 TN

There is probably no issue that has been more controversial than the timing of the second coming of Christ. Everybody wants to know when he is coming back. And so far everybody has been wrong.

I propose we take a look at what Jesus himself said about the timing of his return. Remember that whenever Jesus was tangled up with the religious leaders of his day, he said, over and over again, Have you never read? He says the answer to your question has been sitting there in the Word all this time, and you just read right over it.

So let’s take a fresh look at what Jesus said about the timing of his own return. The first thing we need to notice is that Jesus says, in his conversation with his own disciples, nobody knows when I’m coming back. In fact, he says, I don’t even know when I’m coming back. The only one who knows when I’m coming back is the Father, and he hasn’t even told me!

This is what he says 24:36] “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” So whatever else we know, we know that if the Father didn’t even tell his own Son, he’s not going to tell us. So anybody who tells you they know when Christ is going to return is wrong.

I remember a guy wrote a book in 1988, and the title of the book was “88 Reasons why Jesus is coming in 1988.” Well, 1988 came and went, so the next thing we hear is that he has written a new book, “89 reasons why Jesus is coming in 1989.” Then, 1989 came and went, and Jesus didn’t come back. We haven’t heard from him again. His credibility as a teacher on prophecy is completely shot.

Jesus says, I can’t tell you exactly when I’m coming back, but I can tell you some of the things that have to happen first. He was having this conversation with the disciples and they were expressing their amazement at what a spectacular, amazing building the Temple, Herod’s Temple, was. It was a truly magnificent building and it might have been the most majestic Temple in the world. It was the rival of any temple that had been built in honor of Zeus, Apollos, or Artemis of the Ephesians, or any of them.

And Jesus says, 24:2] “You see all these stones? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” He says, one of the things that has to happen before I come back is the complete and total destruction of this temple, which the disciples couldn’t even wrap their heads around. They thought surely God would step in and keep his house from being destroyed,

But as I have mentioned, this prophecy was fulfilled in detail in 70 AD when the Roman armies under Titus broke into the city. They had to lay siege to the city for two years before they broke through the wall. The soldiers were so mad at the Jews for making them sleep on the ground for two years, they burned the whole temple to the ground. They even took the massive building stones, some of which were 40 feet long and 25 feet wide. They knocked them down, they pried them apart, and they just toppled a bunch of them over the edge of the wall. They are stIf you visit Jerusalem today you can see them.

There was a lot of gold in the temple, and the fires they set started melting the gold. It ran down between the building blocks, so that is why they had to pry them apart in order to get at the gold that had run down the cracks in between the stones.

Another thing most people get wrong about the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 24 Is that he is not primarily teaching about his Second Coming. He is teaching about the destruction of the Temple. He says that has to happen first, but he says his Second Coming will take place after the destruction of the Temple.

24:29] “After the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man” He says the first thing that has to happen is the complete destruction of the Temple, and then, AFTER that happens, I will return.

Jesus tells them, I can’t tell how long after the destruction of the Temple it will be before I return, because I don't know. If I had more information I’d share it with you, but all I know is that it will be after.

But, he says, when you see the temple being destroyed then you need to get out of the city. When you see the 24:15] “abomination of desolation”, don’t even go downstairs to get anything. He says, literally, you need to head for the hills.

Now the abomination of desolation was the desecration of the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant was kept, and where only the High Priest could go. He could only go in there once a year because it was the Most Holy Place. He could not go in there without the blood of an unblemished sacrifice. So when you see the Most Holy Place defiled, when you see the abomination of desolation, that’s your signal to get out of there if you want to live.

This happened under Titus’ command. He was the Roman general who soon became the Emperor of Rome. He got promoted to Emperor in part because of his victory over the Jews. So, Titus, after they had boken through the defenses around the Temple, went in and looked around. One of the things he wanted to see was the Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. So he went in and his mere presence there was an abomination. Here was a raw pagan, an idols worshipper, going into the place that God said no Gentile is ever to come.

This was the abomination of desolation, it was the sign that things weren’t going to get better. Nobody was going to come to rescue them, they weren’t going to be able to drive the Romans out, and it was a sign that the Romans were going to ransack, pillage, and burn the city to the ground. In other words, it was a sign that Jerusalem would be left desolate and empty, with nobody living there. So you see that Jesus literally meant it is time to head for the hills.

The historian Josephus says that there were a lot of Christians in Jerusalem who were familiar with this prophetic word of Jesus, and they took it seriously. So they fled the city and lived to tell about it.

Then Jesus says, sometime after the destruction of the Temple, I will return. This is the way he puts it in 24:29-31] But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

He says I’m going to do to the whole world what Titus did to Jerusalem. I’m going to straighten some things out and set up my eternal kingdom right here in Jerusalem.