Daniel 11 & Matthew 24:36: The Desolate Temple

The book of Matthew, we are still in our study in Daniel 10 to 12, and we're looking at the exposition of Jesus on the

Mount of Olives to give us some clarity. Matthew chapter 24, we'll read three verses to begin.

Matthew chapter 24 verse 1, here now, the inspired word of God, and Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when his disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him.

And he answered and said to them, do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another which will not be torn down.

And as he was sitting 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? Let's pray.

Father, again, as we look into your word, we know your word is truth, does not contain error, doesn't mislead us.

And so, Father, we would ask that once again that you would take your word and as it is preached that you would send it forth and it would not return void, but just as you have promised it would accomplish every purpose for which it is sent.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. Jesus is coming again.

Let me repeat that just in case you missed it. Jesus is coming again.

Now the reason I repeated it is because it's an extremely important point of doctrine. Jesus will return to earth in power and glory at the end of all history.

He will come as he left this earth as the God -man in his resurrected body.

And this is a crucial doctrine of the church and it's included in all of the even the earliest of creeds.

A departure from this truth is a lapse into heresy which makes this an essential central doctrine of the church.

Why am I stressing this point? Because in our society today there are some theologians who have strayed from this truth and state that Jesus has already returned and will not come again.

This is not a new era. The Apostle Paul addressed it in his letters to Timothy, both letters actually, and he cautions

Timothy to be aware of two individuals who he names, Hymenaeus and Philetus.

They were teaching that the final resurrection had already occurred at the time of Paul writing his letters.

Paul says they have made shipwreck of their faith. They were in fact excommunicated by Paul because of this very teaching.

So this is a serious hermeneutical error. The heart of this error is that they take all the references to, quote, the end times, unquote, or the coming of Christ and other references similar and they lumped them all together without regard to context.

They say that all of the references pertaining to the end times were fulfilled in the judgment on Jerusalem, same thing with the coming of the

Lord. That's a huge, serious error. Unfortunately, many conservative theologians make a similar and a related error.

They too lump all of the references to end times, judgment, the coming of Christ as one event, that being the final judgment at the end of history still future to us.

Now it's a less serious error, but it too can cause problems when it comes to future expectations of the church and how are we to behave in this age of the church.

Now why am I bringing this up in our study of Daniel? Well in the last three chapters of Daniel we find similar phrases being used.

We see the end times, the time of indignation, an unparalleled time of distress, a time of resurrection.

Those phrases cause some to immediately relegate these prophecies in Daniel to the still future return of Jesus Christ, simply because of the words that are used.

However, we have seen so far in a study of Daniel that all of these prophecies so far are not referring to the future return of Christ, but are taking place at the end of the old covenant period of time and the institution of the new.

The middle of the 70th week in chapter 9 of Daniel brought us up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

That was the definitive end of the sacrifices of the old covenant and the beginning of Christ instituting the new covenant in his blood.

But even though the old covenant end was definitive, it still continued for at least 40 more years.

It was completely finished when the temple was destroyed, making it impossible to sacrifice animals any longer.

Daniel 10 to 12, those prophecies of the events that lead up to the complete end of the old covenant, is the same period that Jesus addresses with his disciples in the

Mount of Olives. Last week we introduced the background for this important and revealing sermon of Jesus Christ.

Today we'll look into the catalyst, if you will, for the sermon which will give us more clarity for the prophecies of Daniel.

Just a couple of reminders of the context. Remember, after pronouncing eight woes or curses upon the false teachers of Israel, Jesus says this in Matthew 23 38, behold your house is being left to you desolate.

Sounds similar to Daniel, doesn't it? He had previously told them in Matthew 21 43, therefore

I say to you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and be given to a nation producing the fruit thereof.

Notice what he says. He says your temple is going to be laid waste.

And he tells them these things will happen while he's actually teaching in the temple.

So let's look at Matthew 24 verse 1. And Jesus came out from the temple and he was going away when his disciples came up to point out the the temple buildings to him.

I want to read a parallel passage in Mark which gives us a little bit more information about what's taking place.

Mark 13 verse 1. He says, and as he was going out of the temple, one of the disciples said to him, teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings.

I want to ask you a question. Why do you think that Jesus took the time to point,

I'm sorry, why do you think these disciples took the time to point these things out to Jesus?

Look at Jesus. Look at the temple. Look, oh isn't this magnificent? Isn't it beautiful? Was this their first time in the temple?

No, remember Jesus was coming into Jerusalem every day from Bethany and teaching in the temple.

So this was not their first time there. So it's not like they were sightseers who were in awe of the sights.

Do you think that Jesus never understood how beautiful the temple was? No, the context tells us why they pointed these things out.

Jesus had just told him, this place is going to be desolate. It's going to be destroyed.

It's going to be laid waste. Now to any serious, serious religious

Jew, that was unthinkable. Why?

Well, for two reasons. First, the temple was a source of national pride.

It was a beautifully ornate building. There were two or three distinct temples in Jewish history, depending on how you view certain facts.

The first was Solomon's Temple, and we know that was destroyed in 586

BC by the Babylonians. Let me read 2 Kings, verse 25,

I'm sorry, chapter 25, verses 8 and 9. Now on the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, and he burned the house of the

Lord, the king's house, and all the house of Jerusalem, and every great house he burned with fire.

That was the time frame of Daniel's captivity in Babylon, and if you read the following verses, you will see that all the temple articles were carried away.

The second temple was sometimes called the Temple of Zerubbabel. The foundation was laid in around 535

BC, completed about 516 BC. This temple was missing the most precious of all the articles of the temple.

The Holy of Holies was empty. The Ark was never returned, as well as all the temple furniture which was so important to Old Covenant worship.

This temple was ransacked many times during the various wars against Jerusalem. The third temple is called

Herod's Temple. Now, some don't count this as a third, only as rebuilding of the second, so I don't really care which way you look at it, but he began the construction of it about 19

BC. It's the one that was still standing at the time of Christ, and Herod outdid himself in this temple.

This was a most impressive and beautiful building.

It was constructed of white marble, with many Corinthian columns, and the floors were made of multicolored marble, reds and blues and greens.

Truly a fabulous sight to be seen. But the second reason the

Jews could not imagine a temple gone was it was indispensable to the Old Covenant system of worship.

If the temple was destroyed, the heart of Old Covenant worship was gone.

You have to read the Mosaic Law concerning the temple and the sacrificial system to really appreciate this point, but without the temple,

Judaism becomes a shell. So what was going through the minds of the disciples?

If the temple is to be destroyed, Old Covenant worship is impossible.

That means the Old Covenant is coming to an end. A few more on that, a few more comments on that later on, but notice carefully the context.

First, the railing rebuke. What won't you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites? Eight times.

Then the threat that the kingdom is going to be taken away from the Jews. Jesus says the kingdom is going to be taken away from you, your precious kingdom, and giving to a nation bearing the fruit thereof.

And aside from that, the temple is going to be left desolate.

And so the disciples point out the beautiful adornments of the temple to Jesus.

Jesus, look, it's like they're pleading. You can't mean it. But he responds to them in no uncertain terms that, in fact, in fact, the temple will be destroyed.

Look at verse 2, and he answered and said to them, do you not see these things?

Truly I say to you, now one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down.

Jesus says, you want me to look? You look again. Look again at what you see.

These were the things that Jews were so proud of. Remember, the temple represented the dwelling place of God to them.

As long as the temple stood, it is said that God dwelt in the midst of the nation of Israel. But notice the emphatic phrasing of the question, do you not see all these things?

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I must point out to you again that Jesus is using personal pronouns, you, and he's speaking.

Remember who he's speaking to? The disciples privately. He's talking to them, and he wants them to look at what's in front of them.

Jesus is talking about Herod's temple, no ifs, ands, or buts, the one that was built in his time.

That is the temple that he says will be torn down. How complete is the desolation?

Look again at the text. Verse 2, truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down.

Not one stone sitting upon another. That's a description of desolation, to be sure.

And notice that Jesus begins by saying, truly, truly

I say to you, there's that emphasis. This is a trustworthy statement, and Jesus adds the emphasis again.

So let's pause for a minute. Remember that Jesus said all these things will come upon this generation, the men he's, the very men he's talking to, the ones who are alive at the time of his prophetic word.

Not a future generation, but the one who would eventually crucify him. It was that generation that incurred the wrath of God that was, their cup was full of the blood of all the righteous martyrs from Abel to Zechariah, remember last week.

If that's true, then we must ask, did this prophecy of Jesus, did this come true?

The answer is an emphatic yes. In 70

AD, just 40 years from the death of Christ, the Roman army entered Jerusalem in one of the most vicious and bloody campaigns in the history of the world.

We'll look more closely at that in the future, but for now we must note that the siege, the temple was, in that siege, the temple was completely destroyed.

Now there are some who say, well these words of Christ apply to a future temple that will be rebuilt at some time before the second coming of Christ.

I just have to say there is no, there is no biblical, hermeneutical, or logical reason to make that step.

Jesus pointed out that temple to his disciples, he said look at it, now one stone will be left upon another, and in 70

AD, with striking accuracy, that prophecy came true. How literal a description did

Jesus give? Well we know that Jesus uses hyperbole to make a point.

Let's see if he used hyperbole. You decide. I'm going to read to you from a book written by Thomas Newton in 1754.

I love the nowadays marketing mandates that we use short titles for our books.

Here's the title of the book. Dissertations on the prophecies which have remarkably been fulfilled at this time that are being fulfilled in the world.

Is there any question what this is about? Thomas Newton says, for when the

Romans had taken Jerusalem, Titus ordered his soldiers to dig up the foundations both of all the city and the temple.

As we read in the Jewish Talmud and in Maimonides, Ternus Rufus, or rather Terentius Rufus, who was left to command the army at Jerusalem, did with a plowshare tear up the foundation of the temple and thereby signalling fulfilled these words in Micah, therefore shall

Zion for your sake be plowed as a field. Eusebius too affirms that it was plowed up by the ruins.

And Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, in his book The Jewish Wars comments, he says, there was nothing left to make those who had come thither believe it had ever been inhabited.

We're going to cover some very difficult passages in our conclusion of Daniel in the next few weeks.

This one's a ground ball. Jesus pointed out to the temple and said, this is going to be destroyed.

That would come about in this generation and within 40 years that's exactly what happened. Why should we be surprised?

Jesus is never wrong. Let's continue because we see a question.

And as he was sitting 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?

After Jesus leaves the temple, he goes to the Mount of Olives and he's sitting there.

Disciples come to him, and again let me emphasize privately now, this is not in front of the crowd, this is private.

This is Jesus to his own. He's sitting there when his disciples come to him and ask the question.

And the answer Jesus gives has become known as his Olivet Discourse.

And this discourse that is used by everyone to prove their particular point of end times prophetic interpretation.

So it's important, but again the context is important. We must ask, why do the disciples ask this particular question at this particular time?

And again, I think the answer is obvious. It's the natural question based upon what Jesus has told him as he's leaving the temple.

This temple is going to be destroyed. Can only mean one thing, the end of the

Old Covenant age. And I remind you, I want to remind you once again, the principle we always emphasize, the context is always so important.

Remember who Jesus is talking to? Disciples primarily. He's telling them things that have relevance to them.

He is speaking a language that they understand. So let's break this verse down a little.

First, this is one basic question divided into three aspects, but it's essentially one question.

Let me read it again. Verse three, as he was sitting 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?

When will these things be? What things? The destruction of the temple.

That's still the relatively easy question to understand, but then they embellish upon the question with two more parts that are related to it.

What's the sign of your coming and the end of the age? Are these two separate and unrelated questions?

Two different and distinct from the destruction of the temple? That was never even a consideration of the disciples.

First, let's remember again what first century Jewish thinking was like.

We have, in our society, just as soon as you mentioned the end of the world, they even have plans for what they call the end of the world event.

I don't know why. Seems like a little waste of time to me. If the end of the world is going to end, what are we going to plan for?

But anyway, that's what they do. It's like planning for a zombie attack, you know.

But we have to take our thinking and put that aside and say, how did the first century

Jew think? Hebrew scholar George Hill wrote in 1847, time was divided by the

Jews into two great periods, the age of the law and the age of the

Messiah. The conclusion of the one was the beginning of the other, the opening of the kingdom which the

Jews believed the Messiah was to establish, which was to put an end to their sufferings and to render them the greatest people upon the earth.

The Apostles, full of this hope, and to our Lord immediately before his ascension, Lord, what wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

I'm sorry, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Acts 1 .6. Our Lord used the phrase of his coming to denote his taking vengeance upon the

Jews by destroying their city and their sanctuary. Here's the point. The disciples are asked about one event, not three, not two.

They were not thinking about the end of this physical world. That was unthinkable to them, and that's what's reflected even in their choice of the word for world.

The word Matthew uses is not kosmos, meaning the created world, but aeon, which means age.

The great hope of the Jews was that the Messiah would come and put an end to the temporary and bring in the fullness of God's blessing, the great year of Jubilee.

Remember what Jesus preached his first time in the temple? The great Jubilee, and they went to stone him.

When the old covenant age ended, the new age of the Messiah would begin, and of course the destruction of the temple would be one of the marks of that age, but remember something else.

The Jews were not ignorant of the prophecies of Scripture concerning the Messiah. In fact, they were so familiar with them that they were offended by Jesus because he claimed to be the

Messiah. They didn't believe him, and they were angry when he claimed to be, but make no mistake, the beginning of the messianic age was also the end of the age of the old covenant.

But the other phrase which is even more troubling to people today is the coming of Christ.

Listen to the question again. Tell us when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

As soon as a Christian today hears that phrase, the coming of Christ, he automatically thinks of one of two events, either the first advent, his incarnation, or the second physical coming of Christ at the end of the age of all history.

Now, of course, these are two of the most important events in all of history.

It's a recorded fact of history that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven.

Those are facts. It is a fact of biblical prophecy that he will come again just as he left.

That's why I began with the phrase, Jesus is coming again. We read in Acts chapter 1 verse 10, as they were gazing, this is at the ascension, as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.

They also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way you have watched him go into heaven.

But those are not the only two times that Jesus is said to come. In the language of Scripture, the coming of God can mean judgment upon a people.

God was said to come many times in the Old Testament. Remember the

Tower of Babel? Let me just read a couple of verses from Genesis chapter 11.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the

Lord said, behold, they are one people, and they have all the same language. And this is what they began to do.

And now nothing which they purposed to do will be impossible for them.

Now listen to verse 7. Come, let us go down. And they're confused their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the Lord scattered them. Look at the language that David uses to describe the

Lord's deliverance from his enemies. Psalm 18, verse 6.

In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried to my

God for help. He heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry for help before him came into his ears.

Then the earth shook and quaked. The fountains of the mountains were trembling and were shaken because he was angry.

Smoke went up out of his nostrils and fire came from his mouth, devoured.

Coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down with thick darkness under his feet.

And the following verses describe the awesome judgment of God, said to come down.

Now that language strongly resembles language used in the book of Revelation, but that's another message.

There are many other Old Testament passages just like these, but there's also new passages that uses the same language.

Remember when Jesus withdrew with his disciples to Caesarea Philippi? That's where, a very private place,

Peter makes that great confession of the church. Jesus asked him, who do you say that I am?

And he says, thou art the Christ, son of the living God. And after telling his disciples about his coming crucifixion, he spurs them to faithful discipleship.

He tells them that they must be willing to lose their lives for his sake. And now listen to this.

To encourage them, here's what he says. Matthew 16, verse 27. For the

Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.

Boy, that sounds like the end of history, doesn't it? He says,

I will personally come and judge each one of them. So the question we have to ask is, when will this be?

Is he talking about the end of history? It can't be.

Why? Because Jesus says there are some of them who will not die before this happens.

Listen to the very next verse. Matthew 16, 28. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here, and remember this is another private conversation with his disciples, there are some of you standing here shall not taste death until they see the

Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Do you hear what he's saying?

He's saying that before the last of the disciples dies, he's going to come. He's referring to the same event that he warned the

Pharisees about. All the righteous blood from Abel to Zechariah will be avenged.

Not one stone will be left upon another in the temple, and all of this happened before the last of the apostles died, just as Jesus said it would.

He came in judgment upon the apostate nation of Israel. He used the Roman army as his tool to completely dismantle and destroy the remnants of the old covenant system which had been perverted.

The nation had violated all the stipulations that God had given them. They had enjoyed the blessings of the covenant, but now because of the hardness of their heart, they were a cursed nation, and Jesus Christ came in judgment against them.

And that is what Jesus is telling his disciples in this 24th chapter of Matthew, and the whole chapter must be viewed in that context or it will be misused and misapplied.

So how do you end a sermon like this? Jesus is coming again.

That's an essential doctrine of the church, and the timing of that return is still sometime in the future, but that doesn't negate the fact that Jesus came in judgment upon the apostate nation of Israel in the first century.

That temple was destroyed just as Jesus foretold that he would come within that generation that crucified him.

It's what Daniel prophesies to as well. It signified the complete end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new covenant in his blood.

Now is this important for us today? Most definitely. It proves once again the inerrancy and infallibility of the scriptures.

They are divinely inspired and trustworthy on all matters they address. The Bible is the very

Word of God and the only way of salvation. So Christian, that means you can trust the

Bible for all of life and godliness. But it also shows that God is serious about judgment.

If he judged his own covenant people for violating his covenant, what about the world in general?

Same will happen at the end of the age. There will be a general resurrection. Everyone will be resurrected from the grave, both the righteous and the unrighteous.

The righteous to be in heaven with him. The unrighteous, those who have rejected

Jesus Christ, condemned to a life in the lake of fire. Where the worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched.

The words of Jesus. If you're here tonight, this morning, and you've never come to Christ, repent of your sin.