Jesus And The Last Days
JESUS & THE LAST DAYS
Sunday (10/20), gather with your church family as we continue in Matthew’s Gospel (24:1-8).
Jesus spent the last day of His life on the Temple Mount, ministering to His disciples and debating His critics. Then, He turned from them and departed the Temple.
The scene is reminiscent of the prophet Ezekiel's vision as a Babylonian captive. One day, as he sat by the river Chebar, he saw God's glory fill the Temple in Jerusalem. It was unlike anything he had ever seen.
Anything he wrote would fall far short of describing the beauty, majesty, and splendor of the Almighty God's manifested glory. Then, suddenly, it rose from the Temple, crossed over the threshold, and departed.
John the beloved said of Jesus that He was “the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
The glory of God had been among them. There to reach down to His people to connect them to His Father in Heaven. And now, due to their indifference, He left them to themselves.
Adherents to a dead orthodoxy that was full of tradition but lacked any spiritual life. And the saddest part was that they didn’t notice anything had changed for them.
As Jesus left the Temple, He crossed the Kidron Valley that lay on the East side and began what would have been a long thirty-minute climb to the top of the Mount of Olives. As He and His disciples climbed, they asked Him if He had ever noticed the Temple's beauty.
At this moment, Jesus said something that would have been like a nuclear bomb exploding. He told them that there would be a day when the Temple would be razed to the ground, and not one stone would be left on top of another.
The Temple had been the center of Israel’s religious life since King Solomon's time. After the exiles returned from their seventy-year captivity in Babylon, Zerubbabel, the Governor, began rebuilding it. It wasn’t anything like the first Temple, but it provided a place for them to meet and worship their God.
Many years later, when Herod came to power, he began a forty restoration of the Temple and made it his ambition (mainly to gain a name for himself and political expediency with the Jews and Romans) to make it one of the world's ancient wonders. Its beauty and grandeur were without comparison and had become something for the nation of Israel to take pride in.
So, why did Jesus predict the Temple’s destruction? The answer was to remind His disciples that nothing in the temporal world would last forever and to admonish them to secure their eternity.
That may be one reason Jesus never told them the exact day of the Temple’s destruction. Instead, He provided them with signs pointing to that day so they would live each day knowing that eternity was right around the corner.
There are several opportunities for worship: on-campus (10:00 a.m.), drive-in church (92.1fm), and online (Facebook and YouTube: Calvary Inverness).
IN HIS STRONG LOVE,
Pastor
Sunday (10/20), gather with your church family as we continue in Matthew’s Gospel (24:1-8).
Jesus spent the last day of His life on the Temple Mount, ministering to His disciples and debating His critics. Then, He turned from them and departed the Temple.
The scene is reminiscent of the prophet Ezekiel's vision as a Babylonian captive. One day, as he sat by the river Chebar, he saw God's glory fill the Temple in Jerusalem. It was unlike anything he had ever seen.
Anything he wrote would fall far short of describing the beauty, majesty, and splendor of the Almighty God's manifested glory. Then, suddenly, it rose from the Temple, crossed over the threshold, and departed.
John the beloved said of Jesus that He was “the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
The glory of God had been among them. There to reach down to His people to connect them to His Father in Heaven. And now, due to their indifference, He left them to themselves.
Adherents to a dead orthodoxy that was full of tradition but lacked any spiritual life. And the saddest part was that they didn’t notice anything had changed for them.
As Jesus left the Temple, He crossed the Kidron Valley that lay on the East side and began what would have been a long thirty-minute climb to the top of the Mount of Olives. As He and His disciples climbed, they asked Him if He had ever noticed the Temple's beauty.
At this moment, Jesus said something that would have been like a nuclear bomb exploding. He told them that there would be a day when the Temple would be razed to the ground, and not one stone would be left on top of another.
The Temple had been the center of Israel’s religious life since King Solomon's time. After the exiles returned from their seventy-year captivity in Babylon, Zerubbabel, the Governor, began rebuilding it. It wasn’t anything like the first Temple, but it provided a place for them to meet and worship their God.
Many years later, when Herod came to power, he began a forty restoration of the Temple and made it his ambition (mainly to gain a name for himself and political expediency with the Jews and Romans) to make it one of the world's ancient wonders. Its beauty and grandeur were without comparison and had become something for the nation of Israel to take pride in.
So, why did Jesus predict the Temple’s destruction? The answer was to remind His disciples that nothing in the temporal world would last forever and to admonish them to secure their eternity.
That may be one reason Jesus never told them the exact day of the Temple’s destruction. Instead, He provided them with signs pointing to that day so they would live each day knowing that eternity was right around the corner.
There are several opportunities for worship: on-campus (10:00 a.m.), drive-in church (92.1fm), and online (Facebook and YouTube: Calvary Inverness).
IN HIS STRONG LOVE,
Pastor
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