Page 7 - Signs of the End

THE SIGNS OF THE END 1

i.

Jesus’ Words

In the several lengthy discourses of our Lord in the Gospel of Mat­
thew, none seem to reach the level of clarity, immediacy and force
of the prophecy of the Olivet discourse. The pristine moral lessons
of the Sermon on the Mount, and the poetic illustrations of the parables
of Chapter 13, show the eloquence and the keen perceptions of our
Lord regarding the human condition. But here, in His prophecies, we
are struck by the urgency of the message.

Clearly, the disciples were moved, a s we still are today, by the vivid
descriptions of the Lord of the signs of His coming and of the end
o f the world.

THE BEGINNING O F THE END

To set the scene of Matthew 24, Jesu s and the disciples are just
departing from the Temple following His stunning lament, “O
Jerusalem , Jerusalem . . .” (23:37). The Lord had seemed to imply
that the Temple of God would be destroyed (23:38). The disciples,
as well a s the crowd, must have been dumbfounded at this horrifying
implication. Only once before in history had the great Temple of
Jerusalem fallen, and that w as, of course, in the times of the terrible
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Surely, this mild mannered Preacher
of Galilee did not intend to condemn the very House of God! Surely,
He had been carried away in a metaphor!

But in the first two verses of Chapter 24, the Lord m akes it more
than clear to His disciples that the days of the Temple of God were
numbered. “There shall not be left here one stone upon another. .
", the Lord reiterated in the clearest terms as He and His men departed
the Temple mount.

When they arrived at the Mount of Olives, where the Lord normal­
ly preferred to spend His nights while teaching in the Temple, the
disciples “cam e unto Him privately”, apparently intending to seize the