Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Signs of the End of the Age
3 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?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24: 1-14 ESV
Matthew 24: 1-14 Destruction of the Temple and Then Signs of the End of the Age
There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down - This comes right after Jesus' stern rebuke of the Pharisees and Scribes. This is the second temple, Solomon's was destroyed by Babylon hundreds of years before. The people went into captivity for 70 years, and then under Persian rule were allowed to return and rebuild the temple, chronicled in the book of Ezra. This temple, built by Zerubbabel and Ezra, was not nearly so magnificent as Solomon's, but King Herod the Great made a massive project of expanding and renovating it. Now it was becoming quite a spectacle again, and something that the disciples thought was worth pointing out. Jesus is unimpressed with buildings, He created the universe, and they had changed this building, meant to glorify God, into a den of thieves. Outward beauty that hides inward corruption is not worth pointing out, and He lets them know again, it's going to be destroyed. You may take great joy and pride in this, it may be the focal point of Jewish life and tradition, but God is going to send someone to tear it down, and that will be fulfilled by Titus and the Roman army in 70 A. D.
After Herod’s work, the temple was huge: nearly 500 yards or meters long and 400 yards or meters wide. Herod’s plan for rebuilding started in 19 B.C. and was only completed in A.D. 63, taking more than 80 years. The temple was finished only seven years before it was destroyed. - Enduring Word
As He sat on the Mount of Olives - This section is called the Olivet discourse for that reason, and chapters 24 and 25 give us a very broad eschatology. The Mount is a good vantage point to discuss this, as it overlooks the temple.
When will these things be - The disciples are obviously referring to the destruction of the temple, but they lump it with two other questions. So in their minds they are still of the opinion that the Kingdom is about to happen very soon. Jesus has made it clear that He will have to suffer to fulfill the OT prophecies about Him, read Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, He is the Passover lamb, the One without blemish.
And what will be the sign of Your coming - The disciples are viewing all this sequentially and with a sense of immediacy. He has had to state over and over again that He is going to die, and even rebuke Peter with very harsh terms for not accepting this, remember, "get the behind Me, Satan." So their eschatology understands some basic principles, that one like Elijah would come preaching repentance, preparing the way of the Lord, and that Messiah would come. John the Baptist comes in the spirit of Elijah and Jesus is the Messiah, but as you hopefully read in Isaiah 53, He is also the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Everyone who is saved is saved by the grace of God, through the power of the Spirit, applying the substitutionary life and death of Christ. Much of the eschatology of that day would skip the teaching of the prophets when it came to atonement, and the images provided in the Passover and all other sacrifices. They are wanting Jesus to set up His kingdom immediately, ejecting Rome and bringing in a time of peace and prosperity for Israel. Jesus is going to lay it out for them, and what they don't realize or comprehend is that Israel is going to be set aside as God's people, they have rejected God among them, Immanuel, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and there is going to be a long church age starting from Pentecost in Acts 2 and continuing till the end of the age. When Jerusalem is brought under siege and the temple is torn down in 70 A.D., all Israel's national religious representation in the world comes to an end, but not permanently. It was also prophesied that they would return to this land which has happened a lot in the last 100 years, and Israel also became a nation again in 1948.
…42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”… Matthew 21: 42-44
25I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob. 27And this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins.”… Romans 11: 25-27
And of the end of the age - When does this stop and the Kingdom age begin. The disciples want to know when Jesus will return, and when will this be over. He has talked to them about suffering, about drinking His cup, being persecuted, humiliated, and so yeah, they would like to know when all that will come to an end. I think most people who call themselves Christians today really just want to know when things are going to get better. They would like for "America to be great again", and Christians living where there is actual persecution would certainly love for that to come to an end. Sadly though, it is sin that has brought all this with it, death, evil, violence, and yet we don't really hate sin so much as we hate it's consequences. Seeing the way the disciples and Pharisees view the Messiah and the conversations they have, no one truly understands the necessity of the cross. Also, and again, they have no concept yet that the end is a long time off, that they will be driven out of the land again, hated by the nations for thousands of more years.
16 The word of the Lord came to me: 17 “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. 18 So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. 19 I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their deeds I judged them. 20 But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ 21 But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came.
I Will Put My Spirit Within You
22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36: 16-28
See that no one leads you astray - His answer starts with a warning, so we should pay very close attention. Who is going to lead people astray? People coming in His name, saying that they are the Christ, so this tells us there will be a lot of antichrist. History is full of examples. Here is a Wikipedia list of many who claimed to be a reincarnation of Christ. The spirit of antichrist has also been alive in the Roman Catholic church, where the Pope claims to be the Vicar of Christ here on earth, that he is of a special succession of men starting with the Apostle Peter who share this honor.
John Calvin, 1509 to 1564. “Some persons think us to severe and censorious when we call the Roman Pontiff Antichrist, but those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak and whose language we adopt. I shall briefly show that Paul’s words in 2 Thessalonians 2 are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the papacy.”
They saw in the Antichrist the papacy, the Pope. Why? Because they had some special insight that in fact the final Antichrist was actually to be a pope? No. Because the Pope personified everything that the Scripture described the Antichrist to be.
John Knox, 1505-1572, the great Scottish Presbyterian sought to counteract the tyranny which the Pope himself had, for so many ages, exercised over the church. He himself said the papacy is the very Antichrist, the Pope being the son of perdition of whom Paul speaks.
Thomas Cranmer, one of the great martyrs in England - died in 1556, said, “Whereof it follows Rome to be the seat of Antichrist and the Pope to be the very Antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many scriptures.”
The Westminster Confession was written in 1647. The Westminster Confession, the confession of the Reformers says, “There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalted himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God.”
And again I say it isn’t that he is the final Antichrist, but he is in his time and in this age the very embodiment of antichrist. “And there are,” says John, “many antichrists in the world” – before the final one.
Cotton Mather again, an American Puritan, died in 1728. “The oracles of God foretold the rising of an antichrist in the Christian church, and in the Pope of Rome, all the characteristics of that antichrist are so marvelously answered, that if any who read the Scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness on them.”
And Spurgeon, “It is the bounden duty of every Christian to pray against this antichrist. And as to what antichrist is, no sane man ought to raise a question; if it be not the popery in the Church of Rome, there’s nothing in the world that can be called by that name.” - J Mac sermon on Pope and Papacy
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars - Just like there will be many false Christs there will also be a lot of war during this age, and some will think this is the war to end all wars, but it will be a common thing pointing to the final. The spirit of antichrists will culminate in one final man of perdition and his prophet, a faux trinity with Satan as the father, antichrist as the son, and the prophet as the holy spirit, all counterfeits. There will also be a war at the end of the age where they will be defeated.
11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”[a] He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
King of kings and Lord of lords.
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”
19 Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. 20 But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. 21 The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. Revelation 19: 11-21
See that you are not alarmed - If you know God then you know that He is sovereign. Just like Peter and the other apostles didn't want their leader to go to the cross, so many today, myself included, will hate to see persecution come and our comforts slip away. We would all like to see it play out some other way, and many have died and will die before it reaches such heights of terror, but some are even in prison for the gospel now, some are executed for their faith. Jesus is saying, He knows, and these things will happen, but put your faith in Him, eternity will always be more valuable than time and space. This will pass away.
There will be famines and earthquakes in various places - Often war precedes famine and pestilence. Hunger and disease make war so difficult to come back from. This has happened throughout the age, wars like World War 1 and 2, Vietnam, Korea, wars between factions in kingdoms like Russia, China, civil war in America, and the small scrimmages between warlords in more remote places. One ideology is always trying to displace another, and people remember the Nazis, the Fascists, and they killed millions, but then there were the communist, and they killed hundreds of millions. We get into a mindset here where we don't think it can happen to America, but people have thought that everywhere, people thought that about Rome as well. Other places fell because of an onslaught of superior strength and technology from without, but Rome's fall, Babylon's fall, those started from within. The worlds gonna fall, and I know this because the Bible says it's so.
All these are but the beginning of the birth pains - That is so cryptic, so frightening, it's like the book of Job when God says, "consider my servant Job", terrifying. Labor starts out slow, a pain here, a pain there, spread out over time, just like He is describing here. I remember my wife, and them talking about her failure to progress, and we eventually had to get her a C section. It started out small, a little contraction, then eventually water broke, then the pain became more frequent and the intensity increased. Jesus is telling us this is how it's going to play out, the wars here and there are going to increase in number and effect, and this is only the beginning, when you get close to the end everything will culminate in a final travail.
Then they will deliver you up to the Tribulation - This is the time of Jacob's trouble, the end of the age, the last seven years, the final travail in labor. Christianity will be deemed a curse, and you will be hunted by all men, and they will think they are participating in some noble cause by doing so. They will also come after the Jews again.
…21Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. 22 You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. 23When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. Truly I tell you, you will not reach all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.… Matthew 10: 21-23
Many will fall away and many will betray one another - Many of your so called brethren will switch over to the apostasy of the time. They will see Biblical Christianity as too narrow, and they will love the things of the world. This has happened countless times already; people are quick to turn others in, to get on the good side of power. Your life won't be worth more than a candy bar to them. You can see the falling away already, many have made up and follow another gospel. They did that to be liked, they weren't even being persecuted yet, they just couldn't stand the thought of not being cool.
18Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us. 20You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.… 1 John 2: 18-20
Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray - This has been going on for quite some time, but their numbers and schools will increase. They will be in the church, they will be cults, claim to be of "the science", write books about there being no God (books about nothing), they will be liberals and they will be conservatives, they will be of an endless variety.
Lawlessness will increase - People love sin, and the more unrestrained it is the more the draw will be. When we remove consequences, say that what God calls evil is good, we sentence our children to the worst places, and eventually the glory of God departs, like Ichabod in Ezekiel, as we watch the glory depart from the temple. Once God removes His restraint the world will go into blind chaos. The politicians and Hollywood elite already protect pedophiles today and honor all sorts of things that God has called sin, punishable by eternal damnation, and this is not even the worst yet, it's going to get worse.
But the one who endures to the end will be saved - Those that are chosen, those that are elect will be known so for they will endure, this is the Perseverance of the Saints.
This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world - This did not happen before 70 A. D., and it has not been proclaimed everywhere even now. When you read some of the Reformers who were more replacement styled theologians, Amillennial and Preterist, they put a lot of weight on the events of 70 A. D., and we all have a tendency to look at things through the limited scope of our time, or go back to our heroes from the past and take what they thought from their limited view. I read Matthew Henry a lot and he was dumbfounded at the thought of the Jews returning to their land and comments like "all Israel will be saved", in Romans 11. He didn't see them coming back out of the nations and returning to their land, it seemed lost, but yet they have. He also lived in a time before the technology that we have now where the gospel can reach so much farther. Imagine in the 1700's trying to work out how all the world would be able to watch the two witnesses of Revelation 11 at the same time and send each other gifts in a three day time span, unfathomable back then, but now we livestream all the time and can purchase and send things that we never touch.
"Now two things he exhorts the Gentiles to, with reference to the rejected Jews: To have a respect for the Jews, notwithstanding, and to desire their conversion. This is intimated in the prospect he gives them of the advantage that would accrue to the church by their conversion, Rom. 11:12, 15. It would be as life from the dead; and therefore they must not insult or triumph over those poor Jews, but rather pity them, and desire their welfare, and long for the receiving of them in again.
Another thing that qualifies this doctrine of the Jews' rejection is that, though for the present they are cast off, yet the rejection is not final; but, when the fullness of time is come, they will be taken in again. They are not cast off for ever, but mercy is remembered in the midst of wrath.
The Jews are in a sense a holy nation (Exod. xix.6), being descended from holy parents. Now it cannot be imagined that such a holy nation should be totally and finally cast off. This proves that the seed of believers, as such, are within the pale of the visible church, and within the verge of the covenant, till they do, by their unbelief, throw themselves out; for, if the root be holy, so are the branches....Though grace does not run in the blood, yet external privileges do (till they are forfeited), even to a thousand generations...The Jewish branches are reckoned holy, because the root was so. This is expressed more plainly (Rom. 11:28).
Though particular persons and generations wear off in belief, yet there having been a national church-membership, though for the present suspended, we may expect that it will be revived...It is called a mystery (Rom. 11:25), that which was not obvious, and which one would not expect upon the view of the present state of that people, who appeared generally so obstinate against Christ and Christianity that it was a riddle to talk of their unanimous conversion. Alas! who shall live when God doeth this?"
(Matthew Henry's Commentary, V.6, MacDonald Publishing Company, pp. 448-453.)
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