Sunday, November 7. 2021 PM

Where'd my portfolio go? Many moons ago I forgot my portfolio in my office and I got up to preach and I realized I had no notes. Thankfully I had memorized my outline and we made it through. I think y 'all got out early that day.

Seeing that we're going to have lots of fellowship coming up, we're going to forego our normal fellowship time. I'm going to jump right into the lesson and we're going to be in Matthew 24. We had begun talking about the Olivet Discourse a couple of weeks ago and with the sparseness of the Sunday nights that we have available to continue our lessons, even though we have a very special fellowship tonight, I wanted to go ahead and spend some time making some progress.

Hopefully you have a handout. One side says observation of the text and the other side says a series of important events. So Matthew 24 and we're going to read verses 1 through 3. This is the word of the Lord.

Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple and his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple and Jesus said to them, do you not see all these things? Assuredly I say to you not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.

Now 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. The reason why we are studying the Olivet Discourse and you see on the observation of the text that there are three passages listed and you see that there is a parallelism going on, a parallel between Matthew chapter 24, Luke chapter 21, and Mark chapter 13.

It is a grace of God, a blessing that we have three different locations in three different Gospels where we read these similar words to bring clarity to the situation. These are very important words for Jesus as he is pastoring his disciples and getting them ready for what was to come.

The fact that it was listed in triplicate is all the more a blessing to us so that we can have clarity. One of the reasons why we're studying this is because as I'm preaching through the book of Daniel on Sunday mornings we have finished up with the first six chapters and now we're beginning in chapter 7 and following.

I fully anticipate some highly raised eyebrows at some of the preaching that I'm going to be doing in coming weeks, but I want to give some context for that because what Daniel was instructed to do at the end of Daniel was to seal up the words because the time was not yet.

Then Jesus comes to the Mount of Olives and begins to unseal Daniel and quite in fact tells the reader to understand that he's explaining things now. I think that would help give us a little bit of trajectory for how to think through the visions and the promises of Daniel and to solidify our hope in Christ and his return.

When we come to Matthew 24 or Mark 13 or Luke 21, it's important to recognize that this is not a passage that exists in a vacuum. It's not that the disciples have flipped the channel and now they're on TBN and they're watching a prophecy special.

The disciples have been walking with Jesus and they have been seeing how their rabbi, how their master handles situation after situation and the way in which he's been teaching. They've been listening to the parables that he's told.

They've been watching the miracles that he's been doing and they've been watching the controversies that have been unfolding between Jesus and the leaders of the Jews of that time, the religious leaders of the day.

It is helpful to keep in mind that the worship going on in Israel at this time was not biblical. I'll say that again. The religion, the worship going on in this time, the stuff that was happening at the temple, the things that were going on in the synagogues, the religious life of the Jews that was commonly accepted as the way we do things, was not biblical.

We know it's not biblical because Jesus, when he came through teaching, he looked at the masses, the sheep, without a shepherd. He looked at them being run ragged by wolves. How many times did he say to the religious leaders, have you never read?

What did he say to Nicodemus, one of the most credentialed scholars of Second Temple Judaism, and he says, how can you being the teacher of Israel not know these things? They had become so far adrift from biblical worship that Jesus was a constant offense to them as he was telling them to come back and to worship the Lord in spirit and truth, to worship him appropriately.

If they had been on point, if the Jews of day had been on point in their worship as faithful stewards of the Old Covenant, they would have been like Jonathan to David. They would have been rejoicing in the coming of Messiah and saying the kingdom is yours and we'll support you in that.

But they were like Saul, not Jonathan. They were jealous of the one who had arrived and they sought to kill and they sought to steal the kingdom from him and to destroy him because they were not on point.

Jesus said, if you believe Moses, you would believe me. That's how far off they were. If they had been paying attention to Moses, then they would have been ready for the Messiah. So it's important to keep that in mind as we look at this series of importunate events.

Importunate meaning persistently annoying. Jesus was persistently annoying to the religious leaders. The things that he said, the things that he did, the places he went, just rubbed them the wrong way over and over and over again.

But Jesus did not retreat to some secluded hole somewhere where nobody would be bothered by him and engage in monastic orders. He stayed the course and he showed his disciples the need to have courage, to have courage to speak the truth and to do the right things while under fire.

So when we read Matthew 24, we really need to back up a far distance back where Mark 13 or Luke 21, we have to back up a far distance to when Jesus enters in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we call it Palm Sunday, and he enters into Jerusalem intentionally fulfilling prophecies out of Zechariah.

And the people are rejoicing and laying down this red carpet of palm trees, palm leaves and palm branches and laying down their own cloaks for Jesus to enter. And very clearly the claim is being made that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised King that the prophets wrote about in the Old Testament.

That the Son of David, Hosanna to the Son of David, the promised seed of David has arrived. The King of Judah, the Lion of Judah has arrived and the King enters into great fanfare. And we read that his entry shook Jerusalem.

It shook Jerusalem. This was a momentous occasion and it disturbed everyone. You may recall the language out of Hebrews 12 talking about the difference between the Old and New Covenant, how the old is shaken and will be taken away.

Now when he comes into the temple, he engages in cleansing, cleaning up the temple. The temple complex is rather large and there was a lot of business going on. You remember the story is about the money changers in the temple, the cattle, the goats, the turtle doves, all these different things being all these different pieces of livestock being sold there in the temple.

What was going on here? Well because the currency of the day was Roman denarii, because the currency of the day had Caesar's image on it, and because Emperor worship had been established since Augustus, the Jews understood this currency to be idolatrous and unclean.

And so they refused to do business with this unclean currency in the temple grounds. Now in the Old Testament, a very clear prescription was given for those who wanted to go and worship the Lord in the place where he had put his name.

And they were to take the best of their livestock, the first fruit of their livestock, the best of the best, and to bring it to the Lord and sacrifice. However, God made a provision and said, if the place where I have placed my name and told you to worship me is too far for you, you can sell your livestock and turn it into gold, turn it into money.

And then you can bring that money and come to the place where the worship is prescribed, and then you can turn that money into what you need to turn it into for your stay there and for your worship there.

However, if the money you're bringing is idolatrous in the view of the legalistic Jews, then you're going to do something else. And so they took Cyprian money, which had no idols on it at all, and they were exchanging the money.

So at a certain point you would come in and you had your Roman currency, and then you would trade it out for Cyprian money, and they would say, well this money is clean, this money is sanctified. Now their exchange rate was kind of suspicious, right?

And over time it would get even more suspicious. And so what happened is that even, it came to be that even the commoners in the local area, they would bring the best that they had. They would bring their sheep, the best that they had, and they would bring it to the temple.

And it was, it was good for sacrifice. However, it wasn't good enough, you know what I'm saying? It wasn't pure enough, you bunch of commoners. And so here's what we're going to do for you. Your lamb isn't as clean as it should be, it isn't as pure as it should be, but we've got a lot of clean, pure lambs ready to go over here.

So I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll cut you a deal. We will buy your lamb for an undervalued market price, and then you can take that money and then you can go buy yourself one of the lambs that are approved.

So you sell the lamb, you take it over, oh sorry, we don't take Roman denarii. You'll have to go over to the money exchangers and get Cyprian coin. So you take your money over to the money changers, and then you get even less for what you have, and then you go try to buy the lamb, and then you're too poor and you have to buy a turtle dove instead.

What happens to the lamb you sold them? Well, it gets gussied up and then brought back around to be sold as an approved lamb. This is the kind of shenanigans that are going on at the temple. And Jesus called it a den of thieves.

He had good reason to be angry with what they were doing. Now they were doing this against the Jews and fleecing the poor. They were wolves snarling at the flock. They were not shepherds taking care of the flock.

And so Jesus was rightfully angry with them, and he began to clean house. And he particularly makes the point that the temple was to be a house of prayer for all nations. All nations. But they had taken the court of the Gentiles, and they had made it their livestock yard.

Now they had put a sign in between the court of the Gentiles and the court of the Jews, banning any Gentiles from entering in pain of death. But they were very much anti-nations, anti-Gentile, and proud of it.

And so Jesus cleanses the temple. This, of course, did not endear him to the religious ruling authorities. You may remember that when he went to trial, what was the only thing that they could get to stick to him prior to him claiming to be the Son of God?

They could only get two witnesses to agree to him saying that he said, destroy this temple and in three days I will rise it up again. They took that to be a statement against the temple, the temple which they worshiped, the temple which they idolized.

And so because he spoke against the temple, they found fault with him on that count. So, lots of tension here. And then Jesus curses a fig tree. Remember the curse of the fig tree? Curse of the fig tree.

When you go to the temple and you see all the activity, when you see the the hustle and bustle of the temple, and all the people involved, and even all the sounds of the animals, and you can see the smoke rising up from the altar, and all of the fanfare involved with the temple, and you see the Pharisees giving and blowing the trumpets, everyone can see how they're giving their funds, and so on and so forth.

You see all this happening. It seems like a lot of activity. It seems like it's a lively, bustling, happening place. But when you get down to it, what was happening there was absolutely barren and void.

And so, Jesus takes this fig tree as an example. And there's a fig tree that, from afar off, you see it in full leaf. And Jesus, being hungry, approaches the fig tree. Does he find any fruit on it? No, he does not.

He finds no fruit on the fig tree at all. And so, in the presence of his disciples, he curses the fig tree. And what happens to it? Withers and dies. And they are in amazement. You know, first of all, wow, how'd that happen?

And the second of all, why did you kill that fig tree? Right? And then Jesus begins to explain what happened by saying, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, be lifted up and cast into the sea, and it will be done.

Did he say any mountain? We're gonna be doing a lot of focusing on pronouns, not those kind of pronouns, but the other kind of pronouns. When we read Jesus' teachings, when he says, this mountain, or this generation, or these things, we need to pay attention to the demonstrative pronouns that he's using that are there in the Greek.

The English takes it, you know, one for one for us, so we can see what he's talking about. And we need to deal with what he's talking about. What is he talking about? Not what we're thinking about, but what is he talking about?

So when he says, this mountain, what mountain is he standing next to? He's standing next to the Temple Mount. What happened to the Temple Mount? It was destroyed. It was removed. It was removed by the Romans within the generation and the Gentiles, which are often described as the sea in the Old Testament.

So Jesus is being pretty clear with his language and intentional with what he's talking about. He curses the fig tree and it withers, and then he pronounces a coming judgment upon the Temple. No wonder he's in trouble with the Jewish religious leaders.

So then, if you follow along and you see the next series of important events, Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 20, Jesus is confronted by the Jewish religious leaders who wanted to kill him. It challenges his claim to authority, and then his counter question exposes their powerlessness when he talks about John the Baptist.

John the Baptist, by whose authority did he do these things? Was it from God, or was it from man? And then moving on to the parable of the evil tenants. There is an image of Israel, an image of the tenants of the Old Covenant, an image in the Old Testament in Isaiah 5 of a vineyard.

Jesus takes up this imagery and then tells a parable, a parable of the evil tenants. And the tenants were to work the vineyard, labor in the hot sun, do all that hard work, and then set aside the income and the produce that they receive from all of their labor.

And they were to give to the owner of the vineyard what was due to him. But Jesus tells the story and he says, now what do they do instead? When the owner sends his servants back to them to collect what was due, to call for their faithfulness in their service, they do what?

They refuse the servants, they mock them, they beat them, they even kill some of them. And later on we find out this is Jesus's analogy of what the prophets experience as the prophets came to Israel time and again to say, you must repent and give to the Lord God what is due according to the covenant he made with you.

And then finally the owner says to himself, what am I gonna do? I know, I will send my son to them. Surely they will honor my son. So he sends his son to them and what do they do? They say, oh here's the heir.

Here is the rightful heir to what we have been entrusted with. If we kill him, we get to keep it. If only Saul could have pegged David to the wall, he could have maintained control of the kingdom. If only the Jewish religious leaders in their jealousy could kill the son of David, maybe then they would take hold and keep a handle on what was not really rightfully theirs.

And so Jesus tells the story and they kill the son in the story. And Jesus then asks the crowd in Matthew's account, he says to the crowd, so what's the owner gonna do? And everybody knew what the owner was going to do.

They said, oh it's pretty simple. He's going to come and kill these tenants and he's going to give the vineyard to others who will produce the fruit of it. And Jesus said, yeah that's what's gonna happen.

He knew he was going to die. He knew he was going to die at the hand of these evil tenants. He knew that they would kill him and cast him outside the walls of Jerusalem. And he also knew that judgment was coming upon Jerusalem for their rejection of the Lord, for their breaking the covenant, the old covenant again and again.

So there's more confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus confronts and counters Sadducees, Pharisees, and scribes. And then he says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He gets all these woes upon the Jewish religious leaders.

And then we come to the Olivet discourse. This is the background, this is the background to what's going on in chapter 24. There is a particular context of conflict going on. There has been a focus upon the temple.

There has been a focus upon the breaking of the covenant that the Jews have been breaking covenant. And that there is going to be some consequences for that. Now to put this into context, I'm going to start reading in chapter 23 of Matthew to help us understand where this is coming from.

In verse 31 of Matthew 23, this is the material that happens right before chapter 24. There were no verse divisions or chapter divisions when Matthew penned this. Okay, so he's not changing the channel when he gets to chapter 24.

These are the words of Christ flowing through. So we keep reading, okay. Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your father's guilt.

Serpents, brood of vipers, how can you escape the condemnation of hell? Jesus meek and mild preaching. Therefore indeed I send you prophets. So Jesus promised to send them preachers. He's going to send them prophets, wise men and scribes.

He's going to send people to them. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. Go back and read Matthew 10. He told his disciples they're going to scourge you in their synagogues and they're going to persecute you from city to city.

So we know who he's talking about and you read it in context. That on you, now notice this verse 35, that on you, he says to scribes, Pharisees, to hypocrites, he says to this this apostate Judaism, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Assuredly I say to you all these things will come upon this generation. You watching your pronouns? What do the pronouns say? These and this. Not those and that. Not any and all. He says these and this.

So you got to take Jesus at his word. Perfect prophet what he says comes true. Okay so that's our that's our task is to believe Jesus and see how it happens. These and this. Now Jesus is not callous. When he's saying this his heart is breaking.

He is not he's not calling them names. He is upbraiding them with biblical language, exposing the darkness and their wickedness by the light of the word, saying things as they ought to be said. But look at his heart breaking for what is about to happen.

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Do you hear his lament? Do you hear his heart breaking for this city and the people who live there? Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. The one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you who are sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing. See your house is left to you desolate. What house? What house has he been talking about for four chapters?

What house is in Jerusalem? It's the temple. And he just said your house is left to you empty, desolate. When you read the book of Ezekiel and the glory of God gets up and walks out of the temple, the glory of God takes an easterly route across the Valley of Kidron and up to the Mount of Olives where it sits for a spell so everybody can see that the glory of God has departed.

Ichabod. After Jesus says this, and he pronounces destruction of the temple within this generation, he says to them their generation, he then walks out the eastern gate of the temple across the Valley of Kidron and up to the Mount of Olives where he sits for a spell.

Do you think he did that by accident or on purpose? Think he did it on purpose after saying your house is left to you desolate. So he says I say to you you shall see me no more till you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple just like he said he was going to do and his disciples came up to him to show him the buildings of the temple. You see he says you know this place is desolate he's heading out and the disciples like but but look at how amazing this place is but but but but but but and indeed it was pretty impressive.

I mean the place was caked and I mean caked with gold. Herod the Great had begun the the remodel is a kind of understatement. It was it was almost a rebuilding of the temple that was seen under the the days of the returns from the exile.

But this temple was caked in gold. They had gold everywhere. They were beautifying the temple in in in massive ways. They had stones there put together to improve the temple. Stones so large that modern engineers don't know how to move them.

And and the temple was covered in so much gold that when the Romans did attack and burn the temple and destroy it that the flames got so hot that the gold melted and seeped in between the cracks of the bricks which was why during the plundering phase of the destruction of Jerusalem no stone was left upon another because the soldiers cracked them all open to get to the gold.

And Jesus said it would happen you know 40 years before it did. He's a true prophet. He says, do you not see all these things? Assuredly I say to you not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.

Now he says, do you not see all these things? What are the these things? The all the different parts of the temple that the disciples were showing him. He says, not one stone shall be left here upon another.

So he's talking about that temple and he's talking about those stones there at that time. That was his promise. That was his prophecy. And so next time we get together about this we're going to deal with verse 3 and see its connection to and it's setting for the rest of chapters 24 and really on in chapter 25.

But notice he left. He left the temple and he goes to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming in the end of the age?

As soon as they hear about the destruction of the temple, you know, this is the end of the world. Let's go talk to Jesus about it. And we're going to hear what he, as their pastor, as their shepherd, his love for them in the coming days, how he's going to shepherd them and guide them, and what was to come.

So that'll be our goal next time is to begin to look through those passages. Okay? Alright, well I hope that the new deacons have thought of an interesting tidbit about themselves so that will help us to get to know them better.

And I think we'll, I think we'll start with the elder statesman of the four new deacons. So James, I figure most people know you. We do have some new folks here at Sunnyside, so just maybe introduce yourself.

And now just speak out really loud and everybody will hear you from there.