Matthew 24

Mat 24:1 And Jesus went out and departed from the temple.
And His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple.
Mat 24:2 And Jesus said to them, Do you not see all these things?
Truly I say to you,
There shall not be left here one stone on another that shall not be thrown down.

Are the disciples starting to get discouraged here?
Are they hoping for ANY kind of positive statement from Jesus?
After a steady stream of harsh criticism,
they probably thought at least he would be happy with the temple.

Personally, I can't imagine what it looked like,
wasn't it one of the great wonders of the ancient world?
I think it had been started almost twenty years before Jesus was born,
and here he is around thirty years old,
so it had to be an incredible project to be 50 years in the making and still not finished.
I think history records claim another 18 years or so before it was completed,
and that some stones were over 8 feet tall, over 8 feet wide, over 40 feet long!
How did they even move them?

So anyway,
we might expect at least a nod from Jesus towards such a magnificent work for God.
Instead, he gives us a prophecy,
that sooner or later not one stone would be left upon another.

I'm thinking this would be quite difficult to believe at the time.
Standing right in front of it, it must have seemed to be
one of the most permanent structures ever built by men.
Right up there with the pyramids.

And yet, the next conqueror to happen by (Titus)
slaughtered everyone,
burned every Jew alive who was hiding in the temple,
and when the melting gold dripped down through the cracks
he took the whole temple apart stone by stone to get it.
Who could have imagined that?

So I'm picturing the disciples as feeling rather dejected.
They ask him about how it's all going to end, and he sits down and tells them!
No mystery,
No parables,
No illusions,
He just sits there and tells 'em how its gonna be.

And it doesn't sound good....

First we get a list of things that will happen, but don't signify the end:
- wars and rumors of wars - but the end is not yet.
- kingdom against kingdom - but not yet.
- famines and pestilence - but not yet.
- deliver you and kill you - not yet.
- betrayal and hate - not yet.
- false prophets - not yet.
- love become cold - not yet.
- gospel proclaimed - then...

Mat 24:15 Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation,
spoken of by Daniel the prophet,
stand in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand). Then...

Well, what an odd thing to say.

The first thing I notice is that he calls Daniel a prophet.
I've heard there are a number of scholars trying to [i]disprove[/i] Daniel.
Why bother?
One of my favorite teachers once said
"If a recommendation from Jesus is not good enough for you,
you got bigger problems than the authenticity of Daniel!"

So
If Jesus calls Daniel a prophet
I'm calling Daniel a prophet.

and now that I think about it,
I don't think Jesus ever criticized anything in the Old Testament.
If he was truly God, you might expect him at some point or another say something like
"You know, such-and-such book doesn't really belong in there"
or,
"By the way you left out two good ones, xxx and yyy".
But no, Jesus accepts the Old Testament just as it is.
Hmmm, I've never thought about that before....

but I'm getting off the subject.

My concern is,

There have been people in every generation since Jesus who have thought end was near.

There are people who think the end is near now,
but again
there have always been people like that.

I don't care to be just another one of them.

I'm okay with the idea that the end has begun,
because I've seen wars and famine and false prophets already,
and he has said

Mat 24:8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

So maybe the sorrows have begun.

But I'm looking for the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.

That sure sounds like a bad thing, doesn't it?

I don't think it has happened yet.
because...
right after that, he says:

Mat 24:21 for then shall be great tribulation,
such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time;
no, nor ever shall be.
Mat 24:22 And unless those days should be shortened,
no flesh would be saved.
But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.

and I don't know if we've really pushed ourselves to the brink of mass extension yet.

Since Jesus points to a key being the abomination,
what do we know about this?

Daniel mentions it twice:

Dan 11:31 And forces will stand from him,
and they will profane the sanctuary, the fortress,
and shall remove the daily sacrifice,
and they shall place the desolating abomination.

and

Dan 12:11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away,
and the desolating abomination set up,
a thousand two hundred and ninety days shall occur.

Most of the commentaries I have seen suggest (or insist)
that this is the Roman army that destroyed the temple.

Well, I don't know about that.

If this is the beginning of this:

Mat 24:21 for then shall be great tribulation,
such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time;
no, nor ever shall be.

and it lasts 2290 days as Daniel told us in 12:11,

and facts about the great tribulation are detailed in the revelation of John
(which I don't want to digress into right now, but they haven't happened yet)

and what happens immediately after the tribulation is stated right here:

Mat 24:29 And immediately after the tribulation of those days,
the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light,
and the stars shall fall from the heaven,
and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
Mat 24:30 And then the sign of the Son of Man shall appear in the heavens.
And then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn,
and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of the heaven
with power and great glory.

Well, THAT surely hasn't happened yet!

but itsa gonna...

Mat 24:39 And they did not know until the flood came and took them all away.
So also will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Mat 24:40 Then two shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Mat 24:41 Two shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Mat 24:42 Therefore watch; for you do not know what hour your Lord comes.

Either the commentaries I've browsed dismissed this too easily,
or I am missing something and have dismissed them too easily.

Regardless,

I'm watching...!