Why Christ's Kingdom is Here Now

Matthew 16 and the Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Matthew

All right. Again, I appreciate you guys' mercy and bearing with me today with no sleep. If you would turn to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16. We are in a series, for those of you guys that are visiting today, called the Kingdom of God.

It's an exposition of the Gospel according to Matthew. We've been in it for some time, and the blessing of it is that we get to learn so much of the entire story of the Bible. Really, Matthew fills up the Gospel according to Matthew with so much of the Old Testament.

So, if you want to get to know the Old Testament revelation and the New Testament revelation, Matthew is, I think, the best Gospel to do that with. All the Gospels are amazing, but the Gospel according to Matthew is a great way to understand just the entirety of the biblical narrative.

So, we're in Matthew chapter 16. Context here is Jesus telling the leadership of the day, when they're seeking a sign, that no sign is going to be given to them, and that they're an adulterous and evil generation.

That's Matthew 16, verse 4. Jesus, of course, again, is discussing the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He's speaking directly against the false teaching of his day, the covenant breakers of his day.

And, of course, the famous section where Jesus is asked, or he asks, who do men say that I am? And they talk about the common, popular claims of the day. Well, some say you're Elijah, others John the Baptist, Jeremiah, one of the prophets.

And Jesus, of course, says to his disciples, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter replies, you're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus tells him that that revelation's not from him, it's from God himself.

And Jesus promises to give them the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever on earth they bind shall be bound in heaven, and whatever they loose on earth shall be loosed. And Jesus tells them that, of course, that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church, very much in keeping with what the Old Testament said about the kingdom of the Messiah.

It would be established, it would never be destroyed, it would increase in peace and God's governance over it. Then Jesus begins to tell people that he is going to go to Jerusalem to suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Peter, of course, tells Jesus it'll never be that way, and Jesus calls him Satan. Peter has the disease of stick-your-foot-in-your-mouth-itis. He does that often in the New Testament. Then Jesus, of course, tells people a gospel.

He tells people a call of the gospel that's unfamiliar to many of us today in modern evangelicalism. I'm going to read that section here through 16. So we're in Matthew 16, 24. Hear now the words of the living and the true God.

Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. So Matthew 16, powerful section of Scripture. It's not just a text sort of hung up in midair, suspended.

This is a text, Matthew 16, that we are not allowed to simply proof text. That is to say, we can't grab this text and just start giving all kinds of unusual interpretations. We can't just start pouring into this text preconceived ideas of our own.

We can't just take our own tradition or eschatology and begin just laying it over the text and trying to read the text through that grid. When we read the Bible, we need to let the Bible be its own interpreter.

Amen? The Bible needs to interpret the Bible. There was, of course, the catch cries of the Reformation that brought the Christian Church back to the New Testament Church, back to the Bible itself. We know some of the pillars of the Reformation.

We have sola fide. The Bible says that we are saved through faith alone. Sola gratia. We are saved by grace alone. And, of course, we are saved through Christ alone. Solus Christus. We are saved all to the glory of God alone.

Nothing to do with us. It's his work from beginning to end. It's all God in us, opening our eyes, saving us in Jesus. God planning to save. God completing our salvation. All to God's glory. Necessary biblical pillars and catch cries.

There was another one, and it was sola scriptura. And what's that mean? The scriptures alone are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. It wasn't a diss on tradition and creeds. They all believed that.

It was saying that from an epistemological standpoint, that is to say this. From a standpoint of how do I know what's actually true? The Reformers were saying only the Bible. Only the Bible can be your foundation.

Only the Bible is the ultimate source. Not your pastor, not your elders, not some creed or counsel. It's not a confession. It's the Word of God that's the very basis. I love what I heard this week from Zach when he was out doing evangelism.

He talked to somebody. I would say that is the typical modern day evangelical. Sort of a passive nominalism. Jesus, yeah, he's Lord. I'm a Christian. I'm saved in Jesus. But I don't believe everything in that book.

That book isn't the ultimate source. And so at one point, Zach pushed on him a bit about the Bible. What authority does it have in your life? And the guy just couldn't quite catch what Zach was saying.

And so Zach just codified it, nailed it. What does Sola Scriptura mean? What is revelational epistemology? What does it mean to have God's revelation? He said if God says something, does that settle it for you?

I mean that's the fundamental question. You can get deep with it too. You can talk about different kinds of epistemology. Rationalism, popular epistemology of the day. Empiricism, I need to see it, taste it, touch it, smell it, test it.

You can have pragmatism. Well, it works for me kind of a thing. How do you know? Well, I experienced it. It works for me. All these are different ways of knowing something. But the biblical way of knowing anything, saying I know that with certainty, is very simple.

You can put it in high-level categories. Revelational epistemology, you can talk about all the ways that works and the preconditions of intelligibility. But it comes down to a Sunday school, childlike faith.

How do you know what's true? And the answer is, God said it. It's as simple as that. But that wasn't all that we've learned, of course, from the scriptures that the reformers were heralding in terms of getting to the Bible to say I want this to be the standard.

I want this to teach me. I want this to be the source of authority and the foundation of how I know anything at all. The other thing that was said during the time of the Reformation is not just sola scriptura, but tota scriptura.

And that is to say all of scripture. Scripture is the foundation, and all of scripture needs to interpret scripture. So why do I say that? I say that because this is so awesome and glorious and powerful.

This little section right here can either destroy you in terms of your witness for Christ, because you can impose an eschatological or end-times framework on it that makes Jesus look like a false prophet, because you're saying something to the effect of, well, it didn't really happen.

Or you can see this in the light of all of scripture and understand that when Jesus says this here, it's not suspended in midair. This is something that's attached, it's anchored to what God said was going to happen in the Old Testament and what Jesus keeps repeating even in the Gospel according to Matthew.

Of course, we know in Matthew 3, John the Baptist, he says as soon as he enters, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now watch. It's tempting to hear all this talk of the kingdom of God and apology of church for all those years and to go, yeah, I'm sick of it.

I've heard that a lot, and it's kind of beating a dead horse. Well, I'm going to say, if you feel like that, if you feel like you're beating a dead horse talking about the kingdom of God, I want to say to you that you will have a real hard time with the Bible, a heck of a time, because the Old Testament revelation of what was so spectacular about what God was going to do in the world had to do with the kingdom, the rule of the Messiah.

And the main emphasis of Jesus in his ministry and the apostles was that the king had come. God had become king.

That's it.

What do you get when God becomes king? Salvation, redemption, all the nations coming to God, justice and righteousness in the world. You get all the things about heaven one day, eternal life, but it only takes place because God became king.

The rule of the Messiah, the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, the rule of God in the world, is the central theme in all of the Bible. If you want to talk about resurrection, resurrection only takes place because Christ is king.

Salvation only takes place in the world because Christ is king. The nations are brought to God because Christ is king. And justice is established in the world because Christ is king. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And so when Jesus says here, some of you standing here will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. You're either going to see that attached to the entire narrative of the Bible and then see it and go, oh, my goodness, Jesus is the promised one.

He's the Messiah. He accomplished all that God said he was going to do. Because you see, this little statement here, some of you standing here will die until you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

All of that, all of that, had to do with events that were going to take place within the lifetime of the apostles, the disciples themselves. Now, one of the things we have to do to get better at understanding the Bible is we have to understand the Bible in its context.

We know that. Christians say that all the time. Context, context, context. We can't just proof text, grab a text and start using that with no context. This exists in a time where they anticipated the Messiah's coming during their lifetimes.

For example, Daniel chapter 9 is a text that's written about 600 years before Christ's ministry. And in Daniel chapter 9, we're told about a period of 490 years that are going to take place that would all wrap around Christ, the Messiah, his kingdom coming into the world.

They knew the time was coming. And that's why it's significant that when the prophets come in in the New Testament, they say things like, the time is fulfilled. Time's up. It's here. This is the time that God had promised.

Daniel 9, the timing of the Messiah. The Messiah was going to come. He was going to be cut off. He was going to die a violent death. And then the second Jewish temple would be destroyed. That's 600 years before Jesus comes.

Messiah's going to come. He's going to die a violent death. He's going to make atonement for iniquity. He's going to bring an everlasting righteousness. He is going to anoint the most holy. He's going to make an end of sin.

All that's going to take place, and the second temple's going to be destroyed all within this 490-year time period prophecy. They knew that. That's why they're looking around. Are you the Messiah? Who's the Messiah?

Because this is the time. And Jesus is also speaking in the context of what they understood God's rule, the Messiah's rule, was going to enter the world, Daniel chapter 2, during the time of the fourth kingdom.

Daniel, again, prophesies about 600 years before Jesus. They knew that it was four kingdoms, and then the God of heaven would set up a kingdom that would never be destroyed during the time of the fourth kingdom.

They knew which kingdom they were in. These Jews Jesus is talking to, they knew the time. So when Jesus says, you're not all going to die before you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, they knew Daniel.

That's directly from Daniel 7, 13 -14. Daniel 7, 13 -14. Daniel says he's looking in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man. That's the wording Jesus uses. He comes up to the Ancient of Days as presented before him, and to him is given kingdom, dominion, glory, all the people's nations, men of every language might serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away. His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. That's the context. They knew Babylon, Persian, Greek, Rome. They're going, four, Rome.

That's what we're sitting in right now. They knew Daniel chapter 9, 490 years, and now they're coming in saying the time's up. The time is fulfilled. Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It's at the end of the fingertips, guys.

Jesus in Matthew chapter 4, as soon as he comes out of the wilderness temptation, he starts proclaiming the what? The good news of the kingdom. It was on their lips. The rule of God in the world for a Jew meant what the Old Testament said it meant.

That redemption was now going to come to the nations. All the tribes of the world, the families of the earth were going to return to God in salvation. They knew the king was going to be installed. They knew that the law was going to go forth from Zion, Isaiah chapter 2.

That justice was going to be established in the world, Isaiah chapter 42. That this God, who's coming as a son, is going to have a kingdom, a government that will increase with peace and justice. That God himself was going to do that.

They knew that our sins would be covered and paid for. Isaiah chapter 53. He'd be pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement for our well-being fell upon him and by his wounds we are healed.

They knew that the rule of the Messiah was this full-orbed, holistic, big thing that encompassed all of what we want. And now Jesus says to them, some of you aren't going to die until you see the son of man coming in his kingdom.

They knew what it meant. They were waiting for it with anticipation. They knew the time had been fulfilled. My point is this. We can't, as modern-day Western evangelicals, read our ideas into the text post-text.

Here's what I'm saying. How many of you guys, when you heard the term kingdom of heaven, you thought literally about heaven one day? Kingdom of heaven. You thought, well, when that's used, that's in reference to the kingdom of heaven like heaven out there one day, right?

It's out there, this sort of gassy existence with, I know I say it, with babies, fat babies with harps on clouds. It's this strange thing we don't really know a lot about. When we recognize each other in heaven, we have really.

Unbiblical,.

Unchristian categories we think in when we think about heaven one day. We think more today like Gnostics, first and second century heretics, enemies of Christianity. We have really a worldview shaped by their worldview today.

We think about heaven one day as the good experience. We want to get to that place and just really shed this awful evil place. Whereas the Bible doesn't hold that view. It says that God created the world, he created it good.

And that heaven and earth were together one day, but the fall brought a split. And what God is doing in the world, God says, is through Messiah, he's renewing the world, destroying all the works of the devil.

He is healing and bringing a new creation where the Messiah is going to restore all that was broken. We think today that God's going to shed this world, he's going to send it away and destroy it because it's evil and he's done with it.

Whereas the New Testament says that Christ is going to renew the world. He's the beginning of the new creation. Heaven meeting earth again. You understand when the apostles talk about the kingdom of heaven, they're not referring to something out there you go to.

They're talking about the rule of God here. Now, in this life, in this world, I'll give you a sense of the perspective. You know the famous scene. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, what? He says blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness sake, but he says what?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the what? The earth. Blessed are the meek, so they shall inherit the earth itself. The earth itself. You see, Jesus came proclaiming a kingdom, his rule in the world, he was going to put all of his enemies under his feet, he was going to restore all the devil had destroyed, all that sin had loosed in the world.

Jesus was come to overturn that, to bring salvation and redemption. It was very much about God coming into the world to save and to heal the world. That starts with sinners reconciled to God, and then as sinners are reconciled to God, the world itself changes.

They understood with the son of man coming in his kingdom, that meant redemption. It didn't mean very important. If you've missed at all what I'm saying, here's what I'm saying. They did not, they did not, they did not, they did not understand this text here as God is coming to let us escape from the world.

They did not understand the son of man coming in his kingdom as something that meant that God was going to take us out of the world and destroy the world. They understood the son of man coming in his kingdom in light of Daniel 7, 13 through 14.

Read it later. Son of man, ancient of days, and what happens? What happens? Tribes, tongues, languages, dominion, kingdom, serving him. Nothing in there about escaping the world, nothing in there about the world being thrown into the trash heap of history, nothing in there about that.

This has to do with the son of man, the Messiah, receiving a kingdom and all the nations coming to God. Don't believe me? Don't believe that was the emphasis? How does Matthew end this gospel? What's the climactic section of scripture that we all know as Christians?

We talk about it. It's the basis for worldwide missions. What is the climax of Matthew, the gospel according to Matthew? All this talk of kingdom, all this talk about Christ's coming, all this talk about the temple being destroyed, all this talk about the gospel of the kingdom, Matthew 28, 18 -20.

All.

Authority in.

Heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go, therefore,.

And make disciples of, what? All the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.

By the way, a little excursus aside, awesome thing, we just sort of miss it sometimes, when Jesus says as he's ascending up, as he's going up to the ancient of days, the Son of Man is going up, telling us to go get the tribes, tongues, peoples, nations, languages, it says I am with you always.

Can't really do that if you're just a man. Can't really do that if you're just human. You can only be with us always, even unto the end of the age, if you are Yahweh. Don't you love that? The very last verse of Matthew is a testimony to Christ's deity, his divinity, that he's God, he's with you always.

Only Yahweh is always with us. And that's a testimony to his own divinity. So I spoke last week, and the sermon will go up on YouTube if you missed it. I can't go over it all again. I just want to just do a point here.

I talked at the beginning last week about how eschatology matters. It matters a lot. It's going to change your perspective of the world. It'll change how you work and labor in the world. It'll change your hope.

It will also impact your ability to read the Bible. If you have a bad eschatology you're reading into the text rather than letting the text speak, it'll also destroy our witness, because if we have a bad eschatology we impose upon the text, and it ends up making Jesus look like a false prophet, the unbelievers grab hold of those false futurist eschatologies and they use them as a weapon against Christ and his message.

I gave you the example of Doug Wilson talking to Christopher Hitchens at Westminster Seminary, and Doug utterly taking all of Christopher Hitchens' chestnut argument away by demonstrating that Jesus in fact did return in the first century in judgment, not the second coming, not the resurrection, not the final day of judgment, but the judgment on Jerusalem.

We read Matthew 16, this text, where Jesus warns them to not gain the world and lose their soul. What does it profit you if you gain the world and lose your soul? What will you give in return for your soul?

Four! The four is attached to that. So Jesus says, take up your cross, come die. Don't gain the world and lose your soul. You need to come and follow me. Come and follow me in my death march. Take up that cross and walk with me on the Calvary road.

I want you to come and die and rise again. Four! The Son of Man is about to come, the word is mellow, about to come, with his angels in the glory of his Father, and he will repay each person according to what he has done.

He's been talking all throughout this gospel about those Jewish covenant breakers who are turning away from him and they're about to be judged. Truly, the word there is amen. It's settled. It's guaranteed.

Amen. Some translations say verily. Truly. Amen. Verily, I say to you. Who's he talking to? The disciples. Is he talking to the 21st century Christian church in America? And that's one of the devastating things for us, right?

We read these texts and we read ourselves into the text. Now, I'm not saying, by the way, no way am I saying that the word of God doesn't apply to us, that there aren't principles and promises for us specifically.

Amen, amen. Hallelujah. Absolutely. But we can't read ourselves in a text like Matthew 16 where Jesus says I say to you. He's not talking to me. He's talking to first century disciples who knew the time was fulfilled, they knew the kingdom was breaking into history, they knew that God was about to judge the covenant breakers as he had promised in Malachi chapter 3, and all the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah 65, they knew there was going to be a judgment on the covenant breakers.

He says to you some standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. Now, I want to say this. Some people who have tried to apply this as something future to us have tried to say, well, we need to see the kingdom is coming later.

There are people who believe that Jesus didn't bring the kingdom in the first century. I want to say this with love and humility, truly, with respect. If Jesus didn't bring his kingdom in the first century, then Jesus is not the Messiah.

Straight up, full stop, if he didn't bring his kingdom in the first century, he is not the Messiah. Why? Because the Old Testament tells you when the Messiah's kingdom is coming. It says it had to come at a particular time, it had to come with a certain order, it had constituent elements to it.

If Jesus didn't bring it, he is not the Messiah. There are some people that say that Jesus is going to bring his kingdom later, right? If that's the case, if he's bringing his kingdom later and it didn't come in the first century, then we have a heck of a time with this text here.

Because he said some of them aren't going to die until he brings it in full. Some people have tried to say, well, what Jesus was referring to there was Matthew 17, right here, next text. Matthew 17. It says, after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and his brother and led them up a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light and behold there appeared to him them Moses and Elijah talking with him.

People have said, that was what Jesus was referring to. Was that six days later, he was going to have the transfiguration where they saw him in his kingdom glory. The only problem is, I would say, A well, yes, they got a glimpse of it.

But B.

That doesn't fit exegetically. Why? Jesus said some standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. This was six days later. None of them.

Died. None of them died.

So it doesn't fit. He says some of you standing here will not taste death until you see the son of man coming in his kingdom. Remember, they knew what that meant. Son of man had a particular Old Testament context.

I told you last week that we need to think about the context of the New Testament. They promised a soon coming judgment. I'll highlight one in case you weren't here. Matthew chapter 10. It's a doozy. From my perspective, it is powerful because it testifies that Jesus was exactly who he claimed to be because it happened exactly as he said.

But if you have a wrong eschatology, you'll have a hard time with Matthew 10. In Matthew 10, Jesus talks to his disciples and he says to them, he says, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the son of man comes.

You will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the son of man comes. You're not going to finish your evangelistic efforts before I come. What? In judgment. Now, that of course did happen within 40 years of Jesus saying that.

The Romans turned on the Jews. They destroyed the city and the sanctuary, set fire to the city, slaughtered the Jews so much so that Josephus says blood was flowing through the streets. They sent the Jews off into slavery really around the world.

Jesus kept his promise. He did come to judge them. The imminent time text in the New Testament, there's over 100 texts in the New Testament that are imminent judgments. You know the texts. Behold, I'm coming quickly.

Things that will soon take place. The judge is standing at the door. This generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Some of you standing here will not taste death. You will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the son of man comes.

God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. All these texts in the New Testament speak to imminent.

Judgments.

We need to let the Bible control our interpretation. It's not a matter of literal versus figurative interpretation. It's a matter of will we interpret the Bible.

Biblically or will we be creative.

In how we interpret the Bible? Quick thing. People often say I interpret the Bible literally. I say well so do I. When you're supposed to. When you're supposed to. Jesus is not a literal door. God is not literally a blast furnace, a consuming fire.

He doesn't literally have feathers that he puts you under his wings with. There is not literally a whore drinking blood riding a seven headed ten horned beast. Thankfully. We need to let the Bible control our interpretation of the Bible.

Timing text. Daniel chapter 2. Four kingdoms. Messiah's kingdom. That's Jesus' day. Isaiah 65. God was going to judge the covenant breakers and give his kingdom to another people. Malachi chapter 3. God would send a forerunner, John the Baptist and then the Lord whom you seek Yahweh is going to come to his temple.

He's going to purify some, salvation, and judge others. They knew that was the context. We need to understand biblical language. This is key. Biblical language. I told you last week.

That it's so.

Important for us to let the Bible control how we interpret the Bible and understand how the Bible speaks. The Bible uses dramatic prophetic hyperbole throughout. It uses cosmic deconstruction language.

I told you some examples like we would use today. God is going to turn your world upside down. When someone says that to you, do you really think that God's going to flip the earth on its axis? He's going to turn it.

You know what it means. Right? I'll give you another one. The French have a saying if you transliterate it. It's I have a cockroach. I have a cockroach. Transliterate it. I have a cockroach. They do not mean they're holding a bug.

They're saying I'm having a horrible day. The sky is falling on me. They use hyperbole. Another way to say it is he's going to knock your lights out. Anybody think that's literally God coming to knock a light off of you?

No. God uses cosmic deconstruction language. Let's take a look at an example. You want to see it? This is everyone's favorite thing. This is everyone's favorite. This is what makes you money in bookstores.

Prophecy. Freak people out. The blood moon. The stars falling from the heavens. I want you to see it. Keep one finger or a tab here in Matthew 16. I'm going to show you how this works. Go to Matthew 24.

Matthew 24. Check this out. Jesus has just denounced the Jewish leadership in his day. He's just said to them, woe to you, woe to you. He's condemned them. And what's he say? He says at the end of.

23.

I want you to see it just right above for context. He just condemns them in the temple and then it says, verse 34 of 23, therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town so that on you on who?

On them. On those leaders. On the Pharisees, the Sadducees. He just declared woes to and curses to. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berekiah whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Who's he talking to? Them. That generation. Those covenant breakers. He said all the blood of the righteous from Abel, the first blood spilled to this last person that you killed all of that God is going to require of this generation.

He says in Luke, these are the days of vengeance in order that all that is written may be fulfilled. Now as soon as Jesus declares woes watch, his disciples are tripping. They are shocked. Why? Because Jesus now is a priest.

He's come in and cleansed the temple. He's come in and declared judgments upon the covenant breakers. He's now said that all the blood God is going to require of this generation, it's all coming on you.

Now this is what gets crazy. Jesus then leaves in a very symbolic action. He goes.

And it says.

Chapter 24 verse 1, Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, you see all these things do you not? Truly I say to you there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

This is important. If you put the synoptics together you learn that Jesus when he condemns them he leaves to the Mount of Olives. And this whole conversation takes place on the Mount of Olives. Now this is where it gets interesting.

In the Old Testament when God was destroying the Jewish temple and he was abandoning it to judge it, it says that the glory of God departed the temple and it rested on the Mount of Olives. So Jesus now with the second temple declares woes.

He departs from the temple. He says you're about to lose your temple and be judged. He goes now to the Mount of Olives. Same course that Yahweh took in the Old Testament before he destroyed the temple.

And they say when Jesus says you're all gonna get it this generation he sat on the Mount of Olives. His disciples came to him privately saying tell us when will these things be? What things? Judgment upon that generation.

What will be the sign of your coming? You're gonna judge. What's the sign of your coming? And the end of the age. Not the end of the world. Some of your texts might say the word world there but the word world actually isn't in the text in terms of cosmos.