Introduction
I’ve been short-sighted since I was about 12. I had to get glasses, and I got bullied at school about it, but to be honest, I was just relieved that I could read the numbers on buses again. I could watch and enjoy TV. I could see what my teacher was writing on the board without squinting. My whole world, which had been a frustrating blur, was now in focus.
About thirty-five years later, I noticed I needed to hold a book further away from my face to be able to read the print comfortably. I went to the optician and the moment had come… I was officially both short-sighted and long-sighted. So I now have to wear bifocals.
Today and next Sunday, we’re going to cover Matthew 24, and to understand what God is saying to us in this chapter, you sort of need bifocals. You need, first of all, to see close up, because Jesus talks about things that were very close to his time, in particular the devastation of Jerusalem which reduced it to rubble in AD 70. That was God’s final word on the temple; it’s never been rebuilt, and with the Al Aqsa mosque now standing on that site, I dare say it never will be. That is mostly what the first half of the chapter is about, so that is mostly what I’ll focus on today.
But you need to be able to see far off as well, because Jesus also talks here about the distant future, still future for us in fact; the climax of world history, when he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. That is mostly what the second half of the chapter is about, and I’ll focus on that next Sunday.
On the screen, you see a landscape. Notice that some of it (at the bottom of the screen) is nearby and some of it is further away. What would you say the distance is between the hills in the foreground and those in the background? It’s hard to say, isn’t it. It could be half a mile. Perhaps much further.
This is exactly what Matthew 24 is like; it’s one panoramic view of the future, but actually, it speaks about different times; the near future, at the time Jesus said these words, and the distant future.
Why has God chosen to reveal truth to us about the last days in this way? Two reasons.
Firstly, he doesn’t want us to get fixated about the date of his second coming. Throughout the New Testament, it’s never about when. It’s always about how; how prepared are we for the day the Lord returns?
Secondly, God combines prophecies about AD 70 and the second coming of Christ because the conditions leading up to the destruction of the temple, about 10 years after Matthew wrote this Gospel, are very similar to what they will be right before Jesus comes again someday in the future.
In other words, when Jesus comes back, history will repeat itself in striking ways. So you can learn a lot about what the end of the world will be like by studying the time leading up to the demolition of Jerusalem and its temple.
So, if you have a Bible, let’s read Matthew 24 as far as v28.
Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel - let the reader understand - then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now - and never to be equalled again.
“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time.
“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather."
Background
As we saw back in November, Jerusalem’s temple was an exceptionally grand building for the ancient world, ten stories high, second only to the pyramids in scale, and certainly bigger and finer than any pagan temple anywhere else on earth.
Built when the Jews returned home from exile in Babylon, King Herod began to expand and enhance it about 15 years before Jesus was born, massively increasing its footprint. That redevelopment took about 80 years to complete.
The gates and column decorations in the temple were covered with hammered gold which sparkled in the sun and its walls were made of immensely huge white stone blocks.
As Jesus said in v2, literally not one stone is now left on another; it’s all gone. The largest stone they’ve found in the tiny section of the retaining wall that still survives, what we call the Wailing Wall, not part of the temple proper, is 13 meters long, over 4 meters thick and over 3 meters high. One stone…
To give you an idea, the slabs at Stonehenge weigh about 25 tons each. This single temple stone has an estimated weight of 300 tons. Archaeologists have no idea how they moved it!
And it’s this overwhelmingly impressive architecture that the disciples marvel at in v1. This great complex, where people would flock from miles away just to approach the presence of God, with its Most Holy Place at the heart of it, where God himself dwelt in inapproachable majesty, where sacrifices took place round the clock in the hope that God would cleanse and forgive sin, was awesome to behold.
“Do you see all these things?” says Jesus in v2. “Every stone you see today will soon be rubble.”
In just a few days, Jesus will die as a flawless sacrifice, sins will be atoned for, sinners will be cleansed, the separating curtain will be ripped from top to bottom, the presence of God will be open to all, and this temple will become obsolete and irrelevant.
In other words, all that ritual, the sacrifices, the blood, the religion, the priests, the separating curtain… God is about to do away with it.
Well, Jesus leaves the temple for the last time, with his disciples who are absolutely stunned. Imagine looking up at Durham Cathedral or the Vatican and being told that in your lifetime, the whole lot will be gone, pounded to dust. It’s scarcely believable.
As far as the disciples are concerned, this sounds like an earth-shattering cataclysm and Jesus must surely be talking about the end of the world!
So when they get to the Mount of Olives, which looks across the Kidron Valley at the city, dominated by this temple, they ask Jesus two questions. “Tell us, (v3) when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?” For them, those two questions should get the same answer. But Jesus explains in Matthew 24 that the end of the temple and the end of the world are two different events.
General Warnings of Near and Far (v4-14)
He starts by telling them what not to get alarmed about. V4-8 are about what Christians can expect at all times and do not mean the end must be nigh. In fact, Jesus specifically says in v6 that this is not it.
First of all, in every age, you’ll get false prophets and bogus messiahs with their wacky ideas leading people astray. Jesus mentions them in v4-5.
A Jewish historian called Flavius Josephus wrote an eye-witness account of the times leading up to the destruction of the temple.
He recorded that, as the Romans began to encircle Jerusalem, many would-be heroes sprang up saying, “I am from God, I will save you, follow me.” And many people did.
But significantly Christians didn’t, because they remembered that Jesus had quite specifically said to pay no attention to these kinds of scams.
You get false teachers in every generation. They confuse people with their false gospels that cosy up to the world. They tell people what they want to hear; they’re always soft on sin, they side-step the call to repentance, and often they make a lot of money.
There is plenty of that about today, but it doesn’t mean the end is just round the corner. Watch out for self-proclaimed spiritual leaders, advertising their prophetic powers, who advocate a way of life no different from the liberal and secular culture we’re in. Don’t fall for flashy preachers who tell you that what God mostly wants for you is to be excessively wealthy and comfortable. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
In v7-8 Jesus warns of perils that cause great anxiety. In particular, he mentions wars, rumours of wars, famines and earthquakes.
Again, this is exactly what did happen between Jesus saying these words and the destruction of the temple. There were rumblings of unrest throughout the Roman Empire. There were four different famines during the reign of Emperor Claudius alone. The historian Tacitus wrote about Rome in AD 51: “This year witnessed many signs or omens... including repeated earthquakes.” Flavius Josephus, who I mentioned earlier, wrote that earthquakes were "a common calamity” at that time.
But Jesus says not to assume this must be Armageddon when we see such disasters today. “Such things must happen, but the end is still to come” (v6).
In v9-11 Jesus warns that Christians will always be unpopular. And of course the Acts of the Apostles explains how the very people Jesus was talking to here found themselves arrested, imprisoned and hauled before the courts. Christians were made scapegoats for every imaginable problem in those turbulent times, as they took the gospel to every nation.
Jesus says to expect unfair discrimination; you might be targeted by members of other religions, imprisoned or killed by governing authorities and even ostracised by your own family; indeed he says, “you will be hated by all nations because of me.” We know this is what happened to the early church.
But it happens in every age. A report in the UK parliament this time last year noted that around 365 million Christians worldwide are subject to “high levels of persecution and discrimination.” That’s 25 million more than the year before. Other highlights from that report: 1 in 7 of all Christians suffers persecution. 5,600 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons in 2023. 14,700 churches and Christian properties were attacked or destroyed in that same year.
But Jesus means to encourage us in v13 when he says, “Those who stand firm to the end will be saved.” Will be. Remember that even if your whole Christian life is marked by suffering, the end will not be bitter, but sweet.
These things; deception, destruction, disaster and discrimination are true of all ages. But in v8, Jesus talks about the first of pains of childbirth. Labour begins with more moderate pain. But as the birth draws near, contractions come closer together, growing in intensity and they hurt more.
Jesus says in v9-14 that two things at the same time are going to grow in intensity, like a woman in labour, as his return draws nearer. We’re going to notice increasing suffering for the church’s members and increasing success in the church’s mission.
And even though hatred against Christians and martyrdom will rise, the church will grow. That’s because a church purified by persecution becomes a church empowered for mission. So as the Lord’s return draws near, v14, church growth will advance, and the gospel will accelerate to all nations.
So v4-14 are, I believe, general warnings about tough times that were certainly true of the decades before AD 70, are still true now, but will increasingly be true in the time from now till Christ returns in glory.
Specific Warnings for the Near Future (v15-25)
When we get to v15-25, there’s a shift of focus. Jesus starts to refer just to the particular time of the destruction of Jerusalem because, having referred to the whole world and all the nations in v14, he starts to talk about Judea in v16, which is the area immediately surrounding Jerusalem. So we’re now looking directly on the hill in the foreground so to speak.
“When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing in the holy place (that is, in the temple) spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.”
Jesus is prophesying here a particular and recognizable event that, as soon as it happens, will be the signal to get out of Jerusalem immediately. And Jesus says, “Don’t even bother packing. Don’t go back inside to grab your valuables – run for the hills.”
And notice, Jesus doesn’t say in v20, “Pray that this won’t happen.” Because, in the purposeful sovereignty of God, it must happen. Instead, he says, “Pray that it won’t happen in winter.” And history records that it didn’t, thank God. The fact that Jerusalem fell in the spring and summer of AD 70 reduced greatly the suffering of those who fled, especially children and expectant mothers.
What is this “abomination that causes desolation” that Jesus talks about in v15? It’s a phrase you find 3 times in the Book of Daniel, and it means something grotesquely sacrilegious that has been set up in a sacred place.
Centuries earlier, it described the time when Alexander the Great conquered Jerusalem, and a man called Antiochus Epiphanes strutted into the temple, erected a statue of Zeus in it and slaughtered a pig on the altar. You can imagine how sickening and provocative that would be for Jews.
Jesus says, when you see something as bad as that about to happen again, leave town.
In the two or three years just before AD 70, Roman legions came and encircled Jerusalem. They arrived with statues of their gods, their idols, and you didn’t need to be a Mastermind contestant to see that they were going to put them in God’s holy temple where they do not belong.
Here’s what the history books say... When the Romans arrived, they didn’t attack the city straight away. They waited. They gave the local population a chance to surrender without bloodshed, and for a limited time people could come and go.
Remembering Jesus’ specific warnings here, many thousands of Christians took to the hills at that time. Tragically, the Jews ignored Jesus’ words. Instead, they packed into Jerusalem, thinking there was strength in numbers and that their solid city walls would protect them. And, at this time, many false messiahs sprung up saying, “It will be OK, just follow me,” exactly as Jesus predicted in v23-24.
When the Romans saw that Jerusalem wasn’t going to surrender, they laid siege. For months and months, they cut off food and water supplies. People started to suffer dehydration and starvation. Children died from malnutrition. Pregnant mothers miscarried.
Finally, when those in the city were too weak to resist, the Romans attacked. Exactly as Jesus had said, they destroyed the city and pounded the temple to rubble, till no stone was left on another. “See, I have told you ahead of time” says Jesus in v25.
The scale of human suffering was appalling. Jesus, looking ahead to it, says in v21, “there will be great distress unequalled from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be equalled again.” It was a bloodbath. The fourth century historian Tacitus estimated that about half a million people were slain. Josephus, who actually lived through it, put the figure at over double that.
If Jesus died and rose again in AD 30, as seems most likely, it means God gave Jerusalem 40 years to respond to the gospel and embrace Jesus as Messiah. Just as he gave them 40 years in the wilderness to test their response to his deliverance from slavery in Egypt, he gave them 40 years here to weigh their response to the cross, resurrection and preaching of the early church, confirmed as it was by signs and wonders.
If they had heeded these words in v15-25, they would have been saved. But because Jesus said it, they wouldn’t believe it, and they didn’t listen. It is a most tragic and heart-rending chapter in human history.
A Foretaste of Far-Off Upheaval (v26-28)
But then, just as you think you’re on top of all the chronology, v26-28 throw a curveball. Because, right after speaking about AD 70, Jesus abruptly shifts gear to talk instead about his return; the coming of the Son of Man which is obviously still future. This is what most of the rest of the chapter is about.
No one knows when the Lord’s return will be. Jesus said in Acts 1.7 that it’s not for us to know when it will be. So please don’t waste time and money on books about some mysterious code hidden in the Bible that claims to reveal the date. They’re a money-making scam. The date and time for the Lord’s return are not in here.
Jesus says it will be like lightning that strikes in the east, but is visible in the west. In other words, the Lord’s return will be visible everywhere.
What happened in AD 70 was certainly a cataclysm on a grand scale, certainly for the Jewish nation who had mostly rejected Jesus as their Messiah. It was very decisively and pointedly the end of their world. But it was not at all the end of the world.
But when the Lord returns, the upheaval will be orders of magnitude greater than that for the millions who deny Jesus as Saviour and refuse him as Lord.
Ending
There’s so much to say, and I’ll say more next Sunday. But I’ll finish with this; you might be thinking, how is this relevant for me? This is all about something that happened in the first century, thousands of miles away.
Here’s the point; everything Jesus said 40 years before AD 70, including the complete ruin of a building that seemed built to last forever, and all the events leading up to it, was fulfilled in every detail.
That’s because God knows the end from the beginning. It that means you can absolutely count on his word, and you can entrust him with your future. And it means we have every reason to believe his predictions about the second coming will be just as accurate.
Let’s renew our trust in the Lord, and thank him for his good plan for our lives, as we come together around his table. And, as we eat and drink, remembering his love for us, shown so powerfully on the cross, let’s once again proclaim his death – until he comes again.
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 26 January 2025
