29. Three Questions The Disciples Asked Jesus (End-Times Series Part 10)

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Welcome to the broadcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 29, three questions.

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One of the things that separates the great players from the legendary players is drive. Great players wake up early in the morning, you need to give everything that they have in their practices, but legendary players get up hours before everyone else and they play through the blood and the sweat and the tears.

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They perfect every facet of their game before practice so that when everybody arrives they will outwork them during practice.

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Great players get scoring titles and end up in the hall of fame. Legendary players, however, put their teams on their backs and they go get championship after championship after championship.

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Great players are disappointed after a hard -fought loss, but legendary players would rather die than lose a game.

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That in my humble opinion is what separates the truly great players like Shaquille O 'Neal and Allen Iverson and LeBron James from NBA legends like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, also known as Black Mamba.

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One group was truly great and deserves all the accolades that we could give them, but the other group, the legends, lived with a never -ending obsession to be the greatest player that ever lived and because of that, they're in a class all by themselves.

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One of the ways that we see this distinction playing out is in the way that childhood fans react to players.

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Fans will love great players and cheer for them and even collect their basketball cards, but when it comes to who they want to be when they grow up or who they pretend to play whenever they're in the driveway and no one else is watching, children almost always choose the legends because they can sense that there's a difference between them and every other mortal.

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And as a child growing up in the 80s, I certainly fell afoul to that fandom wanting and with all my heart to be like Mike, but as everyone else who said that iconic statement, we were all unwilling to put forth the effort that a man like Jordan and a man like Kobe would put into it and that is why there is only one

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Mike. Well, this very silly introduction, ironically as it may be, may help us understand one of the great dilemmas in eschatology and may aid us when it comes to Matthew chapter 24, the most important chapter.

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When it comes to biblical chapters of eschatology, and I'm not talking about books, I'm talking about chapters,

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Matthew 24 is the zenith of all the end time passages. It's the

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Superbowl of eschatology. It is the game seven of the NBA finals of the last round of the Augusta.

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Nobody wins at that level accidentally. In the same way, no one begins to understand eschatology in Matthew 24 by sloth.

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It is a chapter that will only yield its treasure to the diligent, to the ones who are willing to put in the black mamba effort.

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Perhaps this is why so few today understand eschatology because passages like this one can only be understood with rigorous effort, which is out of style in today's evangelical easy believism.

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For the last eight weeks, we've been trying to put in black mamba kind of effort. We've been working towards Matthew 24, and we did so by attempting to understand the basics and the introductory materials of eschatology in the first couple of weeks.

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Then we moved on to sort of the main part of the season, right?

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We moved into Malachi where we learned the hermeneutical principles for interpreting eschatology. Then from there, we saw those principles playing out in the theology of John the

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Baptist and our Lord. Over the last several weeks, we've observed how Matthew 21 through 23 provides the essential context that's going to aid us in our understanding of Matthew 24.

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Had we not labored in that way, then we would have not been prepared for what we now face.

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So, with that introduction, I want us to remember very briefly the context that we've been building, and then

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I want us to dive, or maybe a better way to say this, stick one pinky toe into the water of Matthew 24.

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Part one, remembering the context. Matthew 24 occurs as part of the dramatic events surrounding

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Jesus' final week when he is going to bring judgment to some and salvation to others.

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In judgment, Jesus rides into the fruitless city, judges the fruitless temple, and curses the fruitless tree, showing how this judgment applies to Jerusalem, Matthew 21.

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With three successive parables of judgment, the beginning of Matthew 21, Jesus demonstrates that Jerusalem is soon going to fall and that God's kingdom is going to be given to another people that will bear its fruit,

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Matthew 21 through 22. After prophesying of Jerusalem's downfall, Jesus seals their fate with seven covenantal curses of woe, and he pronounces the wrath of God on that city and its temple,

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Matthew chapter 23. In Matthew 24, Jesus is not going to abandon that very consistent narrative of judgment against Jerusalem that he has been working, but instead he's going to give us the very clearest prophecy ever uttered describing

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Jerusalem's downfall. Since this passage is of the utmost importance for our understanding, then what we're going to do is we're going to, over the next several weeks, move very slowly through it until we've sufficiently covered its material, because our goal is not to fly through the text just to say that we've accomplished it.

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Our goal, and what we've been building towards, is that we would understand this chapter, and if we understand this chapter,

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I believe that we will have a much better understanding of eschatology. Part two,

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Matthew 24, one through three. The passage picks up immediately where Matthew 23 left off, which is normally the case when you go from one chapter to the next.

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Jesus finished uttering seven fiery woes against the Pharisees, Matthew 23, 13 through 33.

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Then he prophesied that God is going to visit that generation with the harshest judgment that he's ever given,

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Matthew 23, 34 through 36. Then he tells Jerusalem that their house, the temple, will be left entirely desolated,

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Matthew 23, 37 through 38. The air would have been so thick in that scene that you could have cut it with a hacksaw.

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From there, Jesus abandoned the temple mount, he left the Pharisees standing angrily in their shoes, and he left with his disciples and proceeded towards the

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Mount of Olives. Matthew in his gospel records it this way. Jesus came out of the temple and was going away when his disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him and he said, do you not see all these things?

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

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Matthew 24, one through two. Now considering that Jesus was around 33 years old at this point, and he had been to Jerusalem for every single

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Passover, for all kinds of feasts, and he had spent a considerable amount of time at the temple during his ministry, he would have been plenty familiar with the temple complex and its assorted buildings.

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Knowing this, we cannot imagine that the reason the disciples were pointing out the buildings to him was like a tour guide giving a lesson to a tourist who's seeing a property for the very first time.

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That is not what is happening here. They're pointing out the buildings because there was a deep sense of anguish that was foreboding inside of their hearts.

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They had just watched Jesus scathingly rebuke the double dead Pharisees. They heard him prophesy that the temple was going to be abandoned, left empty in desolation within a single generation.

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Now on the road going up to the Mount of Olives, their goal was not to point out a few side buildings that Jesus may have overlooked.

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The point was pure shock at the buildings that Jesus just specifically condemned.

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Now I want to very quickly, I've never done this before, but I want to sort of ad lib just a moment, and I want us to understand what that moment was like, because the

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Bible goes from verse two to verse three without a lot of controversy. We don't know exactly what the conversation looked like on the road up the mountain to rest at the

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Mount of Olives. We don't know what they were talking about. Maybe they wrote in silence. I don't know, but I want to very creatively, just for a moment, imagine the kind of conversation that they were having.

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The Jerusalem temple was the most important building in all of Israel. It was the crown jewel of Jerusalem, and it was the crown jewel of Judah.

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You have Roman historians like Suetonius and Tacitus saying that it's one of the seven great wonders of the ancient world. It was a magnificent landmark, it was a beautiful spectacle, and no one could have ever imagined

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Jesus saying that your house is going to be left to you desolate. So for a moment, let's take a brief second just to imagine sort of what was going on in the disciples' minds.

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We'll start with Peter. After a moment of silence, Peter may have said something like this, Brothers, did you hear what

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Jesus just said about the temple? Andrew chimes in. I did, brother.

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How could that be true? James. Right? Could the place where God has chosen to dwell actually end up becoming a place of desolation?

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Peter responded, yeah, I'm actually not quite sure. Why would

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God allow his temple to be abandoned? I mean, this just doesn't make any sense.

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How could we even worship God without a temple to go to? It's then that John replied, hey,

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Pete, listen, man, I agree with you. I'm confused.

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This doesn't make sense. You've got to ask him. Now, before Peter could answer,

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John, his feet were probably already shuffling up to the front of the line where Jesus was at the head of the group. Peter then begins speaking before thinking a very

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Petrine thing to do, wildly pointing at the buildings in some animated fashion. It's what Peter might have said.

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Hey, Jesus, you know, you said back there about the house being made desolate and abandoned by God and left in a state of disrepute and all of that.

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Well, it kind of seemed like you were talking about this house.

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And then Peter points up to the temple. Peter continues.

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And, you know, maybe I got this wrong. I'm just looking for clarification. Like, I probably misunderstood, right?

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I totally got that thing wrong about not looking down at the water. Get it, right? So I was thinking there's no way that you're talking about all of this.

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And then Peter starts motioning towards the Antonia fortress and then the Solomon's portico.

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And then some of the other disciples join in. They're like, yeah, what about the court of the Gentiles? What about the court of the priest?

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And what about the court of the women? And what about the temple proper and the holy place and the high holy place?

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And what about all of these things? Maybe they were even muttering, you know, God forbid, surely not.

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We would never let this temple become desolate. But then silence falls over the group.

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It must have felt like ages that Peter was waiting momentarily.

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Indeed, but yet it must have felt like ages. We imagine probably that Peter was the one who broke the silence.

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It's always Peter. Who with a quivering voice may have only said, right?

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Right, Jesus. It was then that Jesus broke the silence by giving the answer that we have recorded in Scripture.

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Do you not see all these things? All of them.

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

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It was at this moment that Peter and the other disciples finally heard the full ramifications of Jesus's prophecy.

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Not only would the temple be abandoned so that weeds and moss would overrun it.

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Now this is much worse because it would be totally destroyed.

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Not just abandoned, but destructed in a single generation of 40 years.

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So that after that time period, it would no longer exist. That thought to that group of people must have been devastating.

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To call it a thought that's hard to swallow barely does it justice.

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They would have walked along in stunned silence wondering how many times that they were going to get to see those buildings before they were reduced to rubble.

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Maybe they walked along in silence the rest of the way to the Mount of Olives where they hastily threw their bags down and prepared to ask him the question.

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Part three. Three questions. The tension was probably too much for these few disciples to bear.

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They had several moments to collect themselves on the walk. And now in the shade of a few thousand olive trees on the

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Mount of Olives, Mark tells us that Peter, James, John, and Andrew are ready to get some answers to the most pressing questions.

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That is how the encounter with Jesus went. We're going to look at the encounter recorded in the book of Matthew chapter 24 verse 3.

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As he, that was Jesus, was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately.

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That's Peter, James, John, and Andrew, Mark tells us. And they said to him, telling us, when will these things happen?

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And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

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There's three questions here. When will these things happen? What will be the sign of your coming?

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And tell us about the end of the age. Now before we begin this,

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I think it's important to remember two things before we continue. First, we need to remember why the disciples are actually asking these three specific questions in the first place.

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They are not asking him about the local stock market in Judea. They're not asking about which restaurant they're going to eat at.

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They're asking him a relevant question that is relevant to what he just said. They ask, when will these things happen?

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They have not been thinking about global events that are going to transpire at the end of the world or some cataclysmic phenomenon led by some world superpower antichrist that would usher in the end of human history.

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That is not what's on their mind. That's probably the very last thing that would have ever been on their mind.

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These men were thinking about things that were right in front of them, such as the abandonment and destruction of their beloved temple.

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And they're going to be asking Jesus, when are you going to return to bring about this judgment?

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They're not assuming a multi -millennia wait for a second coming of Christ where he's going to rapture people out on the clouds.

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That's not even at all in their frame of reference. They are asking him about events that are going to happen when he comes against Jerusalem in a generation.

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So it's important to keep that in mind. The second thing that we need to keep in mind is that it's important for us to remember how normal people answer normal questions.

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The people in the Bible, they're not abnormal people. They're normal people. They ask normal questions that are important to them, and they answer in normal ways to care for one another and bring assurance to one another.

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So let me give you an example of how this works. Suppose I'm at lunch, take a few of my co -workers with me, and I tell them that in 40 years the

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American Republic is going to be no more. It's going to be overthrown, systematically dismantled, and it's going to be reduced down to a pile of rubble.

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That would be a shocking statement over lunch. But, you know, we pack up our stuff, we go back to work. Now, I want you to suppose after work, while everyone's back in the office, a few of my co -workers are kind of shaken up about what

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I said, and they're wondering why I would say such a thing. And they come to me and they ask me, when are these things going to happen?

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Now, if I were a normal person, I would remember that I just gave a very shocking statement at lunch, and I would probably answer giving them a few more details about what

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I was talking about so that they would understand my position and so they wouldn't be freaked out and they'd be able to get their job done at work. That's what a normal person would do.

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A complete moron or an abnormal person or a crazy person might have responded like this, hey, great question, but I know you're really worried about the downfall of America here, but I want you to tuck that question away just for a moment, and I want to tell you about another doozy.

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It's going to happen multi -thousand years into the future, and it's going to involve some crazy things that you can't even possibly imagine.

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You want to hear about that? I mean, that obviously would have bordered on such extreme nonsensicality, and it would certainly not be relevant to the conversation.

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Only a crazy person would answer that way. Well, the thing we have to remember is that Jesus did not answer that way.

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He answered his disciples. He answered questions that they had, and they wanted to know three things.

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First, when is the destruction of the temple and its covenantal abandonment going to happen?

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That's a question Jesus is going to answer. The second question they're asking is, Jesus, when are you going to come?

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What are the signs of your coming? When are we going to know that this judgment coming of yours is going to happen? Jesus, in Matthew 24, is going to answer that question.

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And finally, they want to know about the end of the age, which is not a question about the end of human history, although many people want us to believe that it is.

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It's not. They are wondering if the age of the

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Jews, the age of temples, sacrificial system, high priest, the covenant law, they want to know if that age is going to come to an end with the destruction of the

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Jewish temple. They want to know, is the Jewish age over? And if so, what kind of age is coming next?

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In the weeks ahead, we're going to examine Jesus' response to these very specific questions. And what we're going to see in great detail, maybe you're already beginning to see it now, is that everything that happens in this chapter has to do with the downfall of Jerusalem and the judgment coming of Christ.

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Remember we said a few weeks ago, eschatology can be broken up into two kinds of Jesus' comings.

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There's the first coming where he came in salvation for the elect and judgment of the Jews. This is part two of his first coming.

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And then there's the end of human history coming, where he will give us new bodies and transport us into the eternal state.

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Matthew 24 is not about that. That is what we're going to be looking at over the next several weeks.

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So I pray that this series has been helpful. I pray that it's been enlightening to you. And I pray that you're blessed.