1 Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. 2 And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” 3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Knowledge of the future gives hope to the suffering faithful. So Jesus embarked upon what is often called the “Olivet Discourse,” giving the disciples an outline of what would happen in the future. He left Jerusalem, travelled across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives, the elevated area where Bethany and Bethphage were located, and where He would spend His last hours before being apprehended for execution. Dark times were coming and His faithful followers were going to need hope, not just for the next few days, but for the persecution that would dog them the rest of their lives.
Eschatology is the study of the end-time events when God consummates His plan for the ages. These verses begin one of the key NT teachings on the subject. The first thing Jesus predicts, as He leaves Jerusalem with the disciples, is that the temple itself would be torn down! The temple was the center of spiritual life for the Jewish people, the location of God’s special presence. Without it there would be no way to bring sacrifices and offerings to Him. Just as in previous days when God meted out judgment on Israel, using the Babylonians to invade the land, destroy the temple and take the nation away into exile, so again God’s anger would be poured out because of their rejection of their Messiah. The destruction of the temple would be evidence of God’s extreme displeasure—every Jew would understand that! In A.D. 70, forty some years later, the Romans in fact ransacked Israel, tearing down the temple stone by stone. And now, some twenty centuries later, it still remains unbuilt.
The disciples picked up His drift and inquired about two things: 1) the timing of these events, 2) the confirmatory signs that would signal His coming and the end of the age. As His message unfolds, much is revealed that would keep His disciples, both then and now, anticipating the end—but without hard-fast timing data. After the resurrection, His disciples asked Him again, and then He answered, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts 1:7). Each generation then, is left with the hope that theirs could be the one which sees God bringing everything to an end.
Lord, help me keep alive the anticipation that You will settle all accounts in the end. I can trust in You; that gives me hope.
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