Luke 21: 5 – 38
And Your Questions Are?
5 Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, 6 “These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.”7 So they asked Him, saying, “Teacher, but when will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to take place?” 8 And He said: “Take heed that you not be deceived. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time has drawn near.’ Therefore do not go after them. 9 But when you hear of wars and commotions, do not be terrified; for these things must come to pass first, but the end will not come immediately.” 10 Then He said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. 12 But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake. 13 But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. 14 Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. 18 But not a hair of your head shall be lost. 19 By your patience possess your souls. 20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her. 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. 24 And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 25 “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; 26 men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” 29 Then He spoke to them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. 30 When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. 31 So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. 34 “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy [fn3] to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” 37 And in the daytime He was teaching in the temple, but at night He went out and stayed on the mountain called Olivet. 38 Then early in the morning all the people came to Him in the temple to hear Him.
Do you notice something familiar with this chapter? If you said it reminds you of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24 you win a cookie. This Scripture is probably one of the most interesting chapters in the entire bible because it covers so many future things. There are certain ‘end times’ prophecies that arouse our interests such as a new Temple, The Antichrist, The Great Tribulation, The Rapture, and the 2nd Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are going to do something unique in our review of this awesome chapter. It has 38 verses so it would be a waste of our time to just try to skip through it in one study. We are going to follow the chapter verse by verse. However, when our Lord brings up a key point such as a possible new Temple, we will take some time to talk about this significantly interesting situation. Most likely it will result in a detour of working through the chapter, but we will get back on track, I promise you.
5 Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, 6 “These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.”
To bring us up to speed on what has been transpiring so far, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ had just given a major lecture in the Temple. He and His disciples were leaving the Temple complex and one commented about how magnificent the Glorious Temple was.
As you know this was not the first Temple that the Jews constructed. The first Temple was built under the leadership of King Solomon. It was finished around 759 BC. A couple of hundred years later around 586 BC the Babylonians’ destroyed it.
The Israelites were taken as captives back to Babylon. Our Lord had pronounced a 70 year punishment on the Jews because they had refused to obey His orders. You see the Lord wanted them to trust Him as He still does for us to do today. To show what a True and Faithful God He Is, He challenged them to do some unique things as recorded in the book of Leviticus chapter 25.
“1 And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 5 What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. 6 And the Sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, 7 for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food. 8 ‘And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. 12 For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field. 13 ‘In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession. 14 And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another. 15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you. 16 According to the multitude of years you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you shall diminish its price; for he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops. 17 Therefore you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God. 18 ‘So you shall observe My statutes and keep My judgments, and perform them; and you will dwell in the land in safety. 19 Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill, and dwell there in safety. 20 ‘And if you say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?” 21 Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years. 22 And you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat old produce until the ninth year; until its produce comes in, you shall eat of the old harvest. 23 ‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. 24 And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land.”
This turned out to be a great time of testing for the Israelites, will they trust God to do what He promised, or do they need to take matters into their own hands? What do you think they did? If you say that they took matters into their own hands, you are correct. You win another cookie. The people ignored God’s mandate and still farmed the land during the ‘years of rest’. Our Holy Lord put up with this refusal to obey Him for 490 years. So, for refusing to obey for each of the 70 seven year periods the Lord would give back to the land rest which the Jews refused to do.
If you read the book of Haggai which is only two chapters long, you see the love, mercy and compassion of our Great God. Sure the Israelites would have to serve the 70 year exile sentence, yet you will find how Merciful He was. You see our Precious Holy Lord had allowed the Jews under the leadership of Ezra as leader and priest, then later with Joshua as priest and Zerubbabel as Governor to rebuild the Temple. And, if you do the math, at the end of the 70 years of imposed discipline, the Jews finished the Temple and immediately were worshiping the Lord in His home.
You know that today the Jews are back in the land that God had set apart for them. Do you think that they honor today this rule towards giving the land rest? If you said yes, give back the cookie, you are wrong. To get around this command the Jewish farmers lease out their land on the ‘rest year’ so it can be farmed by non-Jewish tenants. I do not think our Lord Is please with this half hearted type of compliance.
Now we fast forward to around 20 BC when an Edomite by the name of Herod the Great was appointed king of Israel by Rome. He began to lavishly renovate the 2nd Temple and it was still a work in process during the Lord Jesus’ lifetime here on earth. This massive renovation was finished in 64 AD. What’s amazing to me is that after all these years of construction it only lasted 6 years when it was totally destroyed by the Roman army. The devastation was so complete that truly not one original stone was on top of another.
So, now in chapter 21 of Luke the disciples commented to the Lord how beautiful the Temple was. This caused our Lord to remark about its future destruction. Picture with me the disciples shock to the Lord’s words. Their whole life was centered on the Temple worship and now they hear that it is going to be destroyed in a few years.
Many people miss this next direct act by our Awesome Lord. He sits on the Mount of Olives which is the very place where the prophet Zechariah in chapter 14 had predicted that the Messiah would stand when He would come to establish His kingdom.
Zechariah 14, “ 4 And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.”
7 So they asked Him, saying, “Teacher, but when will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to take place?”.
We read in the book of Matthew these words, “1 Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. 2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” 3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Can you now see why the disciples asked these questions of our Lord Jesus Christ? They knew at this point that He was the Messiah, so they wanted to know when He would come in His Power and what would then happen.
I want us all to take a hard look at the questions that were asked our Lord. I want to ask you this, ‘Did the disciples ask two questions or three’? You might not think that this in no big deal, but as we see the possible differences then you will see some startling outcomes.
First of all let’s say there are three questions asked, and then they would be;
1. Tell us, when will these things be?
2. What will be the sign of your Coming?
3. [what or when will be] the end of the age?
If there are two questions asked then they would be as follows;
1. Tell us, when will these things be?
2. And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Have you picked up anything significant between the two possibilities of interpretation of verse 3? Here is one you might not have thought of. By breaking down the disciples questions to our Lord into three questions they now allow the possibility of a new idea, which has been taught in many pulpits as the ‘Rapture’. This is the belief in Calvary Chapel’s.
Sorry, I told you before this would get quite involved. I know we only covered a few verses. But, wow, were they packed full of great information.
