1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2“Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
It had been a very successful day in the Temple, starting back in Matthew 21. Jesus cleansed the temple, defeated the Pharisees by telling parables about their rejection, rebellion and the need to repent, as well as answering all their questions and stumping them with his. Then he chewed them out in Matthew 23, judging them and Jerusalem with tears.
Jesus had won the day, and the disciples were excited!!! As they left the temple, they were probably looking around at all the buildings, thinking about what it will be like when Jesus is reigning in these temples, and I'm sure James and John were calling dibs on which office was theirs. They were not thinking about the destruction of these buildings when someone said to Jesus, "Dude, check out that building!"
Then Jesus said:
2“Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
This was shocking news. They thought that the kingdom of Jesus would include reigning over these buildings. And they, as Jews, equated the destruction of the temple with the end of the age. That is why they ask the next three questions:
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
To us, these are three different questions.
- when will the temple be destroyed
- what will be the sign of your coming
- what will be the sig of the end of the age
But to the disciples, these three questions were one and the same. They equated Jesus' kingdom coming, the destruction of the temple and the end of the age all being one and the same event. They thought these things would happen simultaneously.
Yet, these all occur as separate events. The temple was destroyed in AD 70 and we are still awaiting Jesus' second coming. Jesus makes a distinction between these two events. He answers their question by showing what the signs of the destruction of the temple will be (24.4-35), and then he tells them that no one will know when the end of the age, his second coming will take place (24.36-44).
So...Jesus' answer is actually quite simple. There will be numerous signs that will occur before the destruction of the temple, but there will be no signs before Jesus' second coming, it will happen unexpectedly.
Today, we are going to look at the birth pains, six signs that show the destruction of the temple will take place soon. The first three are found in Matthew 24.4-8. See if you can recognize them.
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
Did you recognize the three signs?
They are:
- False Christs
- Wars and Rumors of Wars
- Famines and Earthquakes
And all of these three occurred before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. In the book of Acts, we see a few false Christs: Theudas and Judas (5.36-37); an Egyptian (21.38); Bar-Jesus (13.6-8) and even Simon Magus (8.9ff). The Jews were threatened during this period by three consecutive emperors of Rome: Caligula, Claudius and Nero. But the bigger threat was the internal civil wars that were occurring within the Jews. And lastly, in the years AD 46 or 47, 51, 60 and 62 or 63 there were earthquakes and famines.
All of these three signs occurred before the destruction of the Temple. And the same is true of the next three signs. Can you recognize these three?
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
The three signs are:
- Persecution
- Heresies (False Teachings)
- and Preaching the gospel to the "whole world"
Just reading the book of Acts and the epistles (the letters of the New Testament; Romans-Revelation) will show you that Christians were persecuted during this time. Not only persecution, but there were false teachers that were "worming their way into" all the different churches that Paul planted. These included the Judaizers of Gal. and Acts 15, as well as the gnostics of 1 John, and even the Colossian Heresy.
And now we come to the last sign, Preaching the gospel to the whole world.
When we see this, we think, "There are still tribes in South America TODAY who haven't heard the gospel, so this can't be referring to a sign BEFORE the destruction of the Temple 2,000 years ago.
This is not what Jesus meant when he said, "The whole world." Jesus did not mean that every person in every corner of the globe would hear the gospel, but what he is saying is that the gospel would reach to all KNOWN nations.
The word Jesus used for "whole world" refers to the "inhabited known world", specifically the Roman Empire. The bottom line is this: Paul claimed that the gospel had reached the "inhabited known world" in Romans 1.8; 10.18; 16.26; Col. 1.6, 23; and 1 Thess 1.8.
All of these six were signs to the Christians that the destruction of the temple was going to take place soon. The key to what Jesus is trying to do is found in verse 13, which says:
13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
This is not referring to salvation, per se, but to surviving the destruction of the temple. Those who stand firm and believe Jesus and obey him, when all this goes down, they will have fled the city of Jerusalem already. This is what we will see tomorrow. Yet isn't this a universal principle.
If we believe Jesus and trust him in obedience, we will come out a lot better than if we don't. We will be saved, gain life, not just in a temporary not being killed sense, but in a salvation, eternal life sense.
So Stand firm, believe Jesus, trust him with obedience.
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