Many religious people read the 24th chapter of Matthew and interpret it as prophecies about the second coming of Christ. They may also point to various current events, wars, pandemics, etc. as symbols of these things soon to occur, things like the current COVID-19 and all the death and upheaval it has caused. But most, if not all, of Matthew 24 records Jesus’ answers to his disciples’ questions about when his prophecy of the temple being destroyed would happen. So can we interpret any greater purpose from this current pandemic?
- 2020 – a banner year…
- CNN Headline – dangerous doomsday predictions
- “Wildly inaccurate readings of Revelation”
- Y2K, Mayan calendar 2012…
- Predictions can be call for action, but appear to be cause for panic…
- Mt. 24:6-8
- Context of Mt. 24
- Disciples asking about destruction of temple, not Jesus’ 2nd coming – they likely didn’t even understand Jesus was about to be crucified…
- Mk. 13:4; Lk. 21:7
- Judgment Day? Mt. 25:31
- Disciples asking about destruction of temple, not Jesus’ 2nd coming – they likely didn’t even understand Jesus was about to be crucified…
- Keys to Understanding Mt. 24
- 24:4 – Take heed that no one deceives you (Col. 2:8)
- 24:14 – Gospel preached to all the world (Rom. 10:18; Col. 1:5-6, 23)
- 24:34 – During that generation’s lifetime
- Important details of Mt. 24
- 24:5, 11, 23-26 – Imposter Messiahs (Ax. 5:36-37)
- 24:15 – Abomination of desolation (Lk. 21:20) – Jerusalem seiged by Roman armies
- With four Legions, Titus the Roman General, later to become Caesar, began the siege of Jerusalem in April, A.D. 70. He posted his 10th legion on the Mount of Olives, directly east of and overlooking the Temple Mount. The 12th and 15th legions were stationed on Mount Scopus, further to the east and commanding all ways to Jerusalem from east to north. The 5th legion was held in reserve.
- 24:16 – Then flee to the mountains!
- Josephus – The Romans, though it was a terrible struggle to collect the timber, raised their platforms in twenty-one days, having stripped the whole area in a circle round the town to a distance of ten miles. The countryside like the City was a pitiful sight; for where once there had been a lovely vista of woods and parks there was nothing but desert and stumps of trees. No one – not even a foreigner – who had seen the Old Judea and the glorious suburbs of the City, and now set eyes on her present desolation, could have helped sighing and groaning at so terrible a change; for every trace of beauty had been blotted out by war, and nobody who had known it in the past and came upon it suddenly would have recognized the place: when he was already there he would still have been looking for the City.
- 24:21 – Great tribulation
- Josephus – These Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamour, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing . . . thus it was the holy house burnt down . . . Nor can one imagine anything greater or more terrible than this noise; for there was at once a shout of the Roman Legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamour of the seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword . . . the people under a great consternation, made sad moans at the calamity they were under . . . Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the Temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it.
- To give a detailed account of their outrageous conduct is impossible, but we may sum it up by saying that no other city has ever endured such horrors, and no generation in history has fathered such wickedness. In the end they brought the whole Hebrew race into contempt in order to make their own impiety seem less outrageous in foreign eyes, and confessed the painful truth that they were slaves, the dregs of humanity, and outcasts of their nation.
- Destruction of temple – not one stone left upon another
- During the long siege, a terrible famine raged in the city and the bodies of the inhabitants were literally stacked like cordwood in the streets. Mothers ate their children to preserve their own strength. The toll of Jewish suffering was horrible but they would not surrender the city. When at last the walls were breached, Titus tried to preserve the Temple by giving orders to his soldiers not to destroy or burn it. But the anger of the soldiers against the Jews was so intense that, maddened by the resistance they encountered, they disobeyed the order of their general and set fire to the Temple. There were great quantities of gold and silver there which had been placed in the Temple for safekeeping. This melted and ran down between the rocks and into the cracks of the stones. When the soldiers captured the Temple area, in their greed to obtain this gold and silver they took long bars and pried apart the massive stones. Thus, quite literally, not one stone was left standing upon another. The Temple itself was totally destroyed, though the wall supporting the area upon which the Temple was built was left partially intact and a portion of it remains to this day, called the Western Wall.
- 24:29-31 – Figurative language describing judgment and punishment
- Is. 13:10; 34:1-4; Ez. 32:7
- Why try to predict Judgment?
- Comfort/procrastination/pride
- 24:36 – No one knows the day/time
- 2 Pet. 3:10-13 – Must be ready