Page 35 - Eschatology - Student Ebook

Do any prophecies reveal WHEN they will be fulfilled?

Isaiah 2:2 foretold that in the last days the Temple of God would stand again. “And it shall come to pass
in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains,
and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.

So, we do know that the generation who sees the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem may be the
generation living in the last days. The judgment brought to Israel because of her unfaithfulness to the
Lord initiated the “time of the Gentiles.”

Jesus does give one chronological clue about the times of the end. He says, "Jerusalem shall be trampled
under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." (Luke 21:24, NASB). And then he
says something very interesting. He says, "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all
things take place.

The end of “times of the Gentiles” is a commencement sign or marker in history that concludes one age
and initiates another. Jesus said something very interesting about this event. He said, "Truly I say to
you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place." (Luke 21:32).

This idea is reinforced by the passage in Matthew 24:32-34. A prophetic clock started ticking in the
countdown to the coming of Messiah. “A fig tree” would bud or come alive again. What is this fig tree?
In both the Old and New Testaments, the symbol of the fig tree is used EXCLUSIVELY for Israel (Judges
9:10, I Kings 4:25, Luke 13:7, John 1:50). A very early Jewish/Christian commentary on Jesus’ Mount of
Olives prophecy, the Apocalypse of Peter (AD 110) addresses the identity of the fig tree. The writer said,
“It is the nation and house of Israel.”

Best interpreted, this verse says that the generation that sees the birth of Israel is the generation that
saw the commencement of the end time sign. On May 14, 1948, the Jewish People's Council met at the
Tel Aviv Museum and announced the creation of the state of Israel. Israel became a nation again after
1878 years of wandering among the gentile nations!

However, if I read Luke 21:24 correctly, Jesus further narrowed the date of the “budding of the fig tree”
by saying that the end of the age of the Gentiles is accompanied by the Jewish re-establishment of
Jerusalem, which is followed by signs in Heaven and Earth, and, that the generation then living will not
die off until the fulfillment of all things takes place. Now here is the wild part. Jerusalem was recaptured
by the Jews in 1967 during the Six Day War; it is no longer in Gentile hands.

So, we can ask the questions, how long is a generation? Will the generation that saw Israel become a
nation be alive when Jesus comes? This concept is usually drawn from Matthew 24:34, “I tell you the
truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” The previous
verses, Matthew 24:1-33, describe end-times events in relation to Israel. As a result, some interpreters
thought that the end times would begin when Israel was “reconstituted” as a nation (which happened in
1948). However, as more and more time passed from 1948, the time span of a “generation” began to
lengthen and lengthen. It has now been more than 60 years – which is far beyond any standard
definition of a generation.

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