JESUS ON THE END TIMES: Part 1-STONES
(As the End Times close in, think of a prayer sung by Godly people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz4toSf-xQU)
On our way back to the Judgements:
Mt 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.
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.
3 And as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the world?
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.
6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must occur; but the end is not yet.
7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in different places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 Then they will deliver you up to be afflicted and will kill you. And you will be hated of all nations for My name's sake.
10 And then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another.
11 And many false prophets will rise and deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will become cold.
13 But he who endures to the end, the same shall be kept safe.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all nations. And then the end shall come.
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).
16 Then let those in Judea flee into the mountains.
17 Let him on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house;
18 nor let him in the field turn back to take his clothes.
19 And woe to those who are with child, and to those who give suck in those days!
20 But pray that your flight is not in the winter, nor on the sabbath day;
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.
22 And unless those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.
23 Then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ! Or, There! Do not believe it.
24 For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders; so much so that, if it were possible, they would deceive even the elect.
25 Behold, I have told you beforehand.
26 Therefore if they shall say to you, Behold, He is in the desert! Do not go out. Behold, He is in the secret rooms! Do not believe it.
27 For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines even to the west, so also will be the coming of the Son of man.
28 For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered.
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.
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.
31 And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree. When its branch is still tender and puts out leaves, you know that summer is near.
33 So you, likewise, when you see all these things, shall know that it is near, at the doors.
34 Truly I say to you, This generation shall not pass until all these things are fulfilled.
35 The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.
36 But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not the angels of Heaven, but only My Father.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall be the coming of the Son of man.
38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered into the ark.
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.
40 Then two shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Therefore watch; for you do not know what hour your Lord comes.
43 But know this, that if the steward of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have allowed his house to be dug through.
44 Therefore you also be ready, for in that hour you think not, the Son of man comes.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord has made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant whom his lord shall find him doing so when he comes.
47 Truly I say to you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delays his coming,
49 and shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken,
50 the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he does not look for him, and in an hour which he does not know.
51 And he shall cut him apart and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(MKJV)
(You can let this play behind your reading if you wish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2HatItuBqc
He looked out at the disciples who had asked him questions about the Temple. It was bright and shining and tall and solid and would seem to be made to endure forever. True, it was built by a false king, Herod the Great, to impress the Jewish people whom hated him, and housed a false clergy, only some of the proper bloodline, the assent to Chief Priest assured by a human bloodline, not by Godly approval and held a ruling body, the Sanhedrin who had no Biblical reason to exist. But it was sure big and grand.
On the Temple:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/archives/guzik_david/studyguide_mat/mat_24.cfm
After the destruction of Solomon's temple, this temple was originally built by Zerubbabel and Ezra (Ezra 6:15). Herod the Great (who ruled when Jesus was born) greatly expanded and improved it. This temple was the center of Jewish life for almost a thousand years - so much so, that it was customary to swear by the temple (Matthew 23:16), and speaking against the temple could be considered blasphemy (Acts 6:13).
i. "Josephus the Jew (Antiquities 15.14) tells us that for eight whole years together he kept 10,000 men a-work about it; and that for magnificence and stateliness, it exceeded Solomon's temple." (Trapp)
ii. After Herod's work, the temple was huge: nearly 500 yards or meters long and 400 yards or meters wide. Herod's plan for rebuilding started in 19 B.C. and was only completed in A.D. 63, taking more than 80 years. The temple was finished only seven years before it was destroyed.
iii. But the Second Temple wasn't just big; it was also beautiful. The Jewish historian Josephus said that the temple was covered with gold plates and when the sun shone on them it was blinding to look at. Where there was no gold, there were blocks of marble of such a pure white that from a distance strangers thought there was snow on the temple.
c. Do you not see all these things? The disciples wanted Jesus to look at the beautiful buildings; Jesus told them to turn around and take a good look at those things.
i. "These things, not building, implying indifference to the splendours admired by the disciples." (Bruce)
But it was the stones that mad them marvel. Jesus had just had it out finally with the priests and Pharisees and was facing his death barely hours away and they were marveling at stones, in a way worshiping the work of human hands. It was a kind of idolatry, IS a kind we all sometimes fail to recognize. Previously in Matt 23, He harangued the priests for getting so into their worship and thinking their worship was a construct of their own, letting their flesh speak for them instead of the Spirit and letting their prejudices influence their Godly deeds. They made great show of their religiousness and the disciples now burst out with admiration for a temple constructed by Herod to show his religiosity, one built on top of a temple constructed by true men of God to show their worship. The way false prophets and antichrists try to build their own construction of religion and salvation on the reality of Christ himself.
Chuck Smith on this moment:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/smith_chuck/c2000_Mat/Mat_023.cfm
So they were showing Jesus the buildings, this fabulous building that was built up there on the temple mount by Herod.
And Jesus said unto them, You see all of these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down (Mat 24:2).
This prophecy of Jesus was literally fulfilled some forty years later, when Titus came into Jerusalem with the Roman troops set fire to the temple, which was the last stronghold in Citadel, in which the inhabitants of Jerusalem were holding out. And so they set fire to the temple, actually against Titus' order. He wanted to preserve the temple, but some drunken soldier shot a flaming arrow, the temple caught fire, the people inside were cremated. The gold in the dome melted and came down in these crevasses. And so they threw down the temple stone by stone, to get the gold, until finally not one stone was left standing upon the other.
Today in Jerusalem near the Western Wall just east of the entrance into the temple mount by which you go up to Al-Aqsa mosque, as you look down on the right hand side to the old Roman road, which is down at the bottom of the valley there that has now been excavated, you can see some stones lying just as they fell, just as they were pushed by the Roman soldiers in 70 A.D. when they sacked Jerusalem. And they believe that some of these stones were actually from that temple of which Jesus spake. And you can see the rubble down there in the bottom of the valley, as these stones were just pushed over, and cracked, and broken, and are still lying in disarray in the bottom there on the street, broke these great pavement stones of the street as they fell. But the prophecy of Jesus was literally fulfilled, so that not one stone of Solomon's temple was left standing upon another. They have all been thrown down.
So now our Lord leads them right over to the Mount of Olives. The olive presses are nearby, maybe even work going on then. The smell of the olive trees. The smell of olives everywhere if there is pressing being done. The smell of spilled olive oil over the years seeped into the soil. The smell vastly different from what Americans have come to expect from smelling olives preserved. The smell of the trees' bark, of their leaves, a deeper hue of green than some trees. Gnarled perhaps, no doubt some scars from trimming and pruning them to keep them fruitful Yes, we do the same to fruit trees here. And, yes, to grape vines.
http://www.sabor-artesano.com/gb/christianity-olive-oil.htm
Both olive oil and olive trees are elements that possess great significance in the Christian religion. The olive tree is a symbol of peace and reconciliation in its identification with the dove who returned to the ark with a olive branch in its beak after the huge flood, signifying God's reconciliation with man. Likewise, when Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem, the Jewish people recieved him with olive branches. This is a tradition that has continued up until today and is remembered every Palm Sunday when the people attend the church to bless their olive branches. Previously they also used to hand olive branches from their balconies or from the headboards of their beds, as a religious symbol.
The death of Jesus Christ and the drama of Calvary are also related to the olive tree given that he was taken prisoner while he was praying in the Garden of Olives, called Gethsemani in hebrew, which means "olive press". This place is known by Catholicism as a place of redemption, when Jesus understood that God was by his side and accepted his passion inside him. In Christianity the olive tree is also identified with the victory or triumph of life over death, this is why the early Christians would decorate their tombs with olive branches.
Yes, He couldn't have been more aware of His own crucifixion as he sat there. And we can't be more aware of the connection with anointing oil and the Holy Spirit.
I want you to picture for a moment, He has taken them from this massive stone monument not to God but to Herod and has led them to a grove of trees men have fertilized and pruned and tended so that they may reach their potential for service to man as God intended. And the ones caring for the trees were engaged in what Theodore Spurgeon termed "Slow Sculpture" though referring to bonsai. In this case, the careful, concerned worshipful design of something God given for a God given purpose.
Not like stones. Not like the cold, hard rigid surface of stone. One men must take chisel and hammer tto to shape and fall to their will. Their will.
When God had stone tablets He etched HIs Law on the stone. Men kept it in an Ark and somewhere along the way that all disappeared and we eventually got a film about an actor chasing after it and the US government hiding it once he found it. The truth behind it was that the Law, ritten on stone, even on something we see as imperishable as stone, was only eternal once it was written on the hearts of men and women. Was only powerful so long as the Holy Spirit was there with it.
Those priest of Jesus' time had it on scrolls and could read it whenever they wanted, but it became stone in their unsaved, unrepentant hearts. It was written on the stone of those hearts carried in bodies created by God, and just as effective for God's purpose there as it was lying in a chest created by God's specific design and and for His purpose. It only served so long as the proper men carried it.
That truth remains today. The Word can be written on hearts that are on fire for the Lord, who want to take what He has given them, listen to His Word, to His Spirit and shape the message by word and action to serve God, to serve His people.
Words like: "This is what we are, broken and crippled and disobedient. We are like those stones, chiseled and hammered and drilled by human hands. We are like the more modern Mormon Tabernacle, honed to perfection, built superbly without a nail, with glorious dimensions, and all for the glory of a false god. So that the edifice then shapes the believer."
We have pounded out idols and the idols have then pounded us out. They become the shape of who we are and it in our hands to allow the Spirit in to rule and excise and refine.
Human hands can make stones sing. Michelangelo could carve David and leave us in awe, of his skill and in the detail of the human form.
In the end, God can blink and melt David and every stone He created that we have formed. Or He could let the soldiers come and rip it all down saving Himself even that effort as He rests.
When the Bible sets that moment of the Temple, the product of man's hands made to supposedly worship God but really to gain man's admiration, against the backdrop of man about to kill his Redeemer, we can realize that that is what idolatry has always really been about: the killing of the redeemer. In our hearts.
That that is what murder has always been about: The killing of the redeemer's image in every human being.
That that is always what the false prophets and antichrists have been about: The killing of the Spirit of the Redeemer by quenching it in our hearts.
That all the hatred, tribalism and nationhoods no matter how they say they are designed to serve the Master, are really about erected stone edifices to the worship of man and his abilities to rule and reign and claim divine heritage or Karmic blessing or demonic privilege.
Many of my fellow believers in the End Times scenario and many who don't seem to believe miss this. We become so head up in the destruction of the Temple being the point of this discourse, in the times Jesus is talking about, in the meaning of "coming back soon" that we miss the point: everything we have constructed is in some way tainted. Even those things we have done guided by the Spirit, even the way we have tried to mold our lives for Him. Some element of sin still remains. It gets amplified into giant stone blocks laid together so well others are in awe, but it is still tainted. We are only made pure, our offering is only made pure, by the sacrifice of Christ.
If He must and it seems that He must, God will loose the barbarians on our foolish edifices and rip them down to let us know that that edifice was only a shadow of what was to come.
The disciples would only realize later something Jesus had said earlier:
Joh 2:18 Then the Jews answered and said to Him, What sign do you show us, since you do these things?
19 Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then the Jews said, This temple was forty-six years building, and will you rear it up in three days?
21 But He spoke of the temple of His body.
22 Therefore when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
(MKJV)
Recall that the original Temple housed the Holy of Holies and only the High Priest could enter. This false Temple housed a false Holy of Holies and this was the greatest sin of all.
While Jesus housed the Holy Spirit who would become available to all once He accomplished his own mission. He knew that the false will always rise up to destroy the true. It cannot abide truth any more than Satan, the creator of all those idols of all the stones that build over the true temple, can abide truth.
In the Tribulation things go from bad to worse for a reason. The false god, Satan, becomes more and more visibly intolerant of the Truth and therefore he is more and more revealed and, at the end, even those once lost will see who they followed . It will be evident to all when He enters his own false temple as he has shaped so many human beings into false temples, and then the Jews know and then any edge of their seat Christians know and the Muslims who have heard of Christ will know. And then the real war, the one hidden behind the stones of idols will be evident and will be one for 3 and 1/2 years.
But you say: "Jesus predicts this. How can Satan who we know reads the Bible and quotes it, go on and do all this? Doesn't he know he will lose?"
Perhaps in those stones lies an answer. I think Satan keeps building his false Temples and seeing them torn down only to build again because he may believe his own lie. He must have once glowed with pride at being so close to God, perhaps seeing God build this world, one less than heaven, and yet bless it with His presence was too much fo that angel's pride. Perhaps God told the angels of His love for them and Satan thought it meant of His love ONLY for them. He may believe God lied so he has the right to turn it around. He may have misread God's Word even as he misleads us in reading it. It doesn't matter all that much that we seek the explanation for his love of stones. He believes he would make a better god even as we believe we would make one. We know only that he fell and landed on this"third rock for the Sun."
We need to heed the caution here and not let our own longings and beliefs shape our lives as so many in power over the centuries have and let the Word shape us, let God's true temple stones replace the ones made of our own hands. Anyone like me trying to prepare words on His Word needs to take special heed. I sometimes show off my research skills given me by God more than emphasize the Word. That will be taken away by His hand and only what I have done precisely for Him will remain. I thank God for that: that He reshapes the message even after it is out there, that His People can sort it for themselves as well by the Spirit.
Because fire is coming to melt the stones. The false stones will go away. The temporary Temples will be replaced by the Living God, the one they were designed to prepare us for.
One more thought on stones. Gemstones exist. For centuries people have honed and shaped them, They firm religions on them, think they can be charms against evil or charms to cast spells, evil or good. One scientific hand too them and discovered you can focus light through those stones and it can become a beacon to carry a message or a powerful tool for cutting and shaping. The laser was born.
God's word is the light of the world and his stone for focusing that light and turning it into a precise laser is the Word. We have to handle it with care or it can be used to shape things in ways God did not intend. We have to be aware of the power. but we have to also realize that it was given that power by the Creator to be used.
Read his Word above, consider it and we will go on. We will spend some time here because I want us to see it is not those End times battles that are so important. It is realizing their reason for even being.
Spend time considering the stones of our lives.
Oh, yes, and consider this too about those gems, from the description of the final Jerusalem, the city descended from Heaven at the end of our story, at the end of all these battles:
Re 21:17 And he measured its wall, a hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.
18 And the foundation of its wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.
19 And the foundations of the wall of the city had been adorned with every precious stone. The first foundation, jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;
20 the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, hyacinch; the twelfth, amethyst.
21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls. Respectively, each one of the gates was one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, as transparent glass.
22 And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty is its temple, even the Lamb.
(MKJV)
With all this End Times thing, this video and the song sum up the face of stone mountains we must sometimes climb and the way God lets us climb them even when He has made them huge. Even in the face of this world melting into something new and barely defined for us by God, we can look at the Spirit He has given you and I and feel the truth lift us against even a tsunami.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwgr_IMeEgA)
(As the End Times close in, think of a prayer sung by Godly people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz4toSf-xQU)
On our way back to the Judgements:
Mt 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.
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.
3 And as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the world?
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.
6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must occur; but the end is not yet.
7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in different places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 Then they will deliver you up to be afflicted and will kill you. And you will be hated of all nations for My name's sake.
10 And then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another.
11 And many false prophets will rise and deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will become cold.
13 But he who endures to the end, the same shall be kept safe.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all nations. And then the end shall come.
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).
16 Then let those in Judea flee into the mountains.
17 Let him on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house;
18 nor let him in the field turn back to take his clothes.
19 And woe to those who are with child, and to those who give suck in those days!
20 But pray that your flight is not in the winter, nor on the sabbath day;
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.
22 And unless those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.
23 Then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ! Or, There! Do not believe it.
24 For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders; so much so that, if it were possible, they would deceive even the elect.
25 Behold, I have told you beforehand.
26 Therefore if they shall say to you, Behold, He is in the desert! Do not go out. Behold, He is in the secret rooms! Do not believe it.
27 For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines even to the west, so also will be the coming of the Son of man.
28 For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered.
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.
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.
31 And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree. When its branch is still tender and puts out leaves, you know that summer is near.
33 So you, likewise, when you see all these things, shall know that it is near, at the doors.
34 Truly I say to you, This generation shall not pass until all these things are fulfilled.
35 The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.
36 But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not the angels of Heaven, but only My Father.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall be the coming of the Son of man.
38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered into the ark.
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.
40 Then two shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Therefore watch; for you do not know what hour your Lord comes.
43 But know this, that if the steward of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have allowed his house to be dug through.
44 Therefore you also be ready, for in that hour you think not, the Son of man comes.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord has made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant whom his lord shall find him doing so when he comes.
47 Truly I say to you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delays his coming,
49 and shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken,
50 the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he does not look for him, and in an hour which he does not know.
51 And he shall cut him apart and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(MKJV)
(You can let this play behind your reading if you wish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2HatItuBqc
He looked out at the disciples who had asked him questions about the Temple. It was bright and shining and tall and solid and would seem to be made to endure forever. True, it was built by a false king, Herod the Great, to impress the Jewish people whom hated him, and housed a false clergy, only some of the proper bloodline, the assent to Chief Priest assured by a human bloodline, not by Godly approval and held a ruling body, the Sanhedrin who had no Biblical reason to exist. But it was sure big and grand.
On the Temple:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/archives/guzik_david/studyguide_mat/mat_24.cfm
After the destruction of Solomon's temple, this temple was originally built by Zerubbabel and Ezra (Ezra 6:15). Herod the Great (who ruled when Jesus was born) greatly expanded and improved it. This temple was the center of Jewish life for almost a thousand years - so much so, that it was customary to swear by the temple (Matthew 23:16), and speaking against the temple could be considered blasphemy (Acts 6:13).
i. "Josephus the Jew (Antiquities 15.14) tells us that for eight whole years together he kept 10,000 men a-work about it; and that for magnificence and stateliness, it exceeded Solomon's temple." (Trapp)
ii. After Herod's work, the temple was huge: nearly 500 yards or meters long and 400 yards or meters wide. Herod's plan for rebuilding started in 19 B.C. and was only completed in A.D. 63, taking more than 80 years. The temple was finished only seven years before it was destroyed.
iii. But the Second Temple wasn't just big; it was also beautiful. The Jewish historian Josephus said that the temple was covered with gold plates and when the sun shone on them it was blinding to look at. Where there was no gold, there were blocks of marble of such a pure white that from a distance strangers thought there was snow on the temple.
c. Do you not see all these things? The disciples wanted Jesus to look at the beautiful buildings; Jesus told them to turn around and take a good look at those things.
i. "These things, not building, implying indifference to the splendours admired by the disciples." (Bruce)
But it was the stones that mad them marvel. Jesus had just had it out finally with the priests and Pharisees and was facing his death barely hours away and they were marveling at stones, in a way worshiping the work of human hands. It was a kind of idolatry, IS a kind we all sometimes fail to recognize. Previously in Matt 23, He harangued the priests for getting so into their worship and thinking their worship was a construct of their own, letting their flesh speak for them instead of the Spirit and letting their prejudices influence their Godly deeds. They made great show of their religiousness and the disciples now burst out with admiration for a temple constructed by Herod to show his religiosity, one built on top of a temple constructed by true men of God to show their worship. The way false prophets and antichrists try to build their own construction of religion and salvation on the reality of Christ himself.
Chuck Smith on this moment:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/smith_chuck/c2000_Mat/Mat_023.cfm
So they were showing Jesus the buildings, this fabulous building that was built up there on the temple mount by Herod.
And Jesus said unto them, You see all of these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down (Mat 24:2).
This prophecy of Jesus was literally fulfilled some forty years later, when Titus came into Jerusalem with the Roman troops set fire to the temple, which was the last stronghold in Citadel, in which the inhabitants of Jerusalem were holding out. And so they set fire to the temple, actually against Titus' order. He wanted to preserve the temple, but some drunken soldier shot a flaming arrow, the temple caught fire, the people inside were cremated. The gold in the dome melted and came down in these crevasses. And so they threw down the temple stone by stone, to get the gold, until finally not one stone was left standing upon the other.
Today in Jerusalem near the Western Wall just east of the entrance into the temple mount by which you go up to Al-Aqsa mosque, as you look down on the right hand side to the old Roman road, which is down at the bottom of the valley there that has now been excavated, you can see some stones lying just as they fell, just as they were pushed by the Roman soldiers in 70 A.D. when they sacked Jerusalem. And they believe that some of these stones were actually from that temple of which Jesus spake. And you can see the rubble down there in the bottom of the valley, as these stones were just pushed over, and cracked, and broken, and are still lying in disarray in the bottom there on the street, broke these great pavement stones of the street as they fell. But the prophecy of Jesus was literally fulfilled, so that not one stone of Solomon's temple was left standing upon another. They have all been thrown down.
So now our Lord leads them right over to the Mount of Olives. The olive presses are nearby, maybe even work going on then. The smell of the olive trees. The smell of olives everywhere if there is pressing being done. The smell of spilled olive oil over the years seeped into the soil. The smell vastly different from what Americans have come to expect from smelling olives preserved. The smell of the trees' bark, of their leaves, a deeper hue of green than some trees. Gnarled perhaps, no doubt some scars from trimming and pruning them to keep them fruitful Yes, we do the same to fruit trees here. And, yes, to grape vines.
http://www.sabor-artesano.com/gb/christianity-olive-oil.htm
Both olive oil and olive trees are elements that possess great significance in the Christian religion. The olive tree is a symbol of peace and reconciliation in its identification with the dove who returned to the ark with a olive branch in its beak after the huge flood, signifying God's reconciliation with man. Likewise, when Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem, the Jewish people recieved him with olive branches. This is a tradition that has continued up until today and is remembered every Palm Sunday when the people attend the church to bless their olive branches. Previously they also used to hand olive branches from their balconies or from the headboards of their beds, as a religious symbol.
The death of Jesus Christ and the drama of Calvary are also related to the olive tree given that he was taken prisoner while he was praying in the Garden of Olives, called Gethsemani in hebrew, which means "olive press". This place is known by Catholicism as a place of redemption, when Jesus understood that God was by his side and accepted his passion inside him. In Christianity the olive tree is also identified with the victory or triumph of life over death, this is why the early Christians would decorate their tombs with olive branches.
Yes, He couldn't have been more aware of His own crucifixion as he sat there. And we can't be more aware of the connection with anointing oil and the Holy Spirit.
I want you to picture for a moment, He has taken them from this massive stone monument not to God but to Herod and has led them to a grove of trees men have fertilized and pruned and tended so that they may reach their potential for service to man as God intended. And the ones caring for the trees were engaged in what Theodore Spurgeon termed "Slow Sculpture" though referring to bonsai. In this case, the careful, concerned worshipful design of something God given for a God given purpose.
Not like stones. Not like the cold, hard rigid surface of stone. One men must take chisel and hammer tto to shape and fall to their will. Their will.
When God had stone tablets He etched HIs Law on the stone. Men kept it in an Ark and somewhere along the way that all disappeared and we eventually got a film about an actor chasing after it and the US government hiding it once he found it. The truth behind it was that the Law, ritten on stone, even on something we see as imperishable as stone, was only eternal once it was written on the hearts of men and women. Was only powerful so long as the Holy Spirit was there with it.
Those priest of Jesus' time had it on scrolls and could read it whenever they wanted, but it became stone in their unsaved, unrepentant hearts. It was written on the stone of those hearts carried in bodies created by God, and just as effective for God's purpose there as it was lying in a chest created by God's specific design and and for His purpose. It only served so long as the proper men carried it.
That truth remains today. The Word can be written on hearts that are on fire for the Lord, who want to take what He has given them, listen to His Word, to His Spirit and shape the message by word and action to serve God, to serve His people.
Words like: "This is what we are, broken and crippled and disobedient. We are like those stones, chiseled and hammered and drilled by human hands. We are like the more modern Mormon Tabernacle, honed to perfection, built superbly without a nail, with glorious dimensions, and all for the glory of a false god. So that the edifice then shapes the believer."
We have pounded out idols and the idols have then pounded us out. They become the shape of who we are and it in our hands to allow the Spirit in to rule and excise and refine.
Human hands can make stones sing. Michelangelo could carve David and leave us in awe, of his skill and in the detail of the human form.
In the end, God can blink and melt David and every stone He created that we have formed. Or He could let the soldiers come and rip it all down saving Himself even that effort as He rests.
When the Bible sets that moment of the Temple, the product of man's hands made to supposedly worship God but really to gain man's admiration, against the backdrop of man about to kill his Redeemer, we can realize that that is what idolatry has always really been about: the killing of the redeemer. In our hearts.
That that is what murder has always been about: The killing of the redeemer's image in every human being.
That that is always what the false prophets and antichrists have been about: The killing of the Spirit of the Redeemer by quenching it in our hearts.
That all the hatred, tribalism and nationhoods no matter how they say they are designed to serve the Master, are really about erected stone edifices to the worship of man and his abilities to rule and reign and claim divine heritage or Karmic blessing or demonic privilege.
Many of my fellow believers in the End Times scenario and many who don't seem to believe miss this. We become so head up in the destruction of the Temple being the point of this discourse, in the times Jesus is talking about, in the meaning of "coming back soon" that we miss the point: everything we have constructed is in some way tainted. Even those things we have done guided by the Spirit, even the way we have tried to mold our lives for Him. Some element of sin still remains. It gets amplified into giant stone blocks laid together so well others are in awe, but it is still tainted. We are only made pure, our offering is only made pure, by the sacrifice of Christ.
If He must and it seems that He must, God will loose the barbarians on our foolish edifices and rip them down to let us know that that edifice was only a shadow of what was to come.
The disciples would only realize later something Jesus had said earlier:
Joh 2:18 Then the Jews answered and said to Him, What sign do you show us, since you do these things?
19 Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then the Jews said, This temple was forty-six years building, and will you rear it up in three days?
21 But He spoke of the temple of His body.
22 Therefore when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
(MKJV)
Recall that the original Temple housed the Holy of Holies and only the High Priest could enter. This false Temple housed a false Holy of Holies and this was the greatest sin of all.
While Jesus housed the Holy Spirit who would become available to all once He accomplished his own mission. He knew that the false will always rise up to destroy the true. It cannot abide truth any more than Satan, the creator of all those idols of all the stones that build over the true temple, can abide truth.
In the Tribulation things go from bad to worse for a reason. The false god, Satan, becomes more and more visibly intolerant of the Truth and therefore he is more and more revealed and, at the end, even those once lost will see who they followed . It will be evident to all when He enters his own false temple as he has shaped so many human beings into false temples, and then the Jews know and then any edge of their seat Christians know and the Muslims who have heard of Christ will know. And then the real war, the one hidden behind the stones of idols will be evident and will be one for 3 and 1/2 years.
But you say: "Jesus predicts this. How can Satan who we know reads the Bible and quotes it, go on and do all this? Doesn't he know he will lose?"
Perhaps in those stones lies an answer. I think Satan keeps building his false Temples and seeing them torn down only to build again because he may believe his own lie. He must have once glowed with pride at being so close to God, perhaps seeing God build this world, one less than heaven, and yet bless it with His presence was too much fo that angel's pride. Perhaps God told the angels of His love for them and Satan thought it meant of His love ONLY for them. He may believe God lied so he has the right to turn it around. He may have misread God's Word even as he misleads us in reading it. It doesn't matter all that much that we seek the explanation for his love of stones. He believes he would make a better god even as we believe we would make one. We know only that he fell and landed on this"third rock for the Sun."
We need to heed the caution here and not let our own longings and beliefs shape our lives as so many in power over the centuries have and let the Word shape us, let God's true temple stones replace the ones made of our own hands. Anyone like me trying to prepare words on His Word needs to take special heed. I sometimes show off my research skills given me by God more than emphasize the Word. That will be taken away by His hand and only what I have done precisely for Him will remain. I thank God for that: that He reshapes the message even after it is out there, that His People can sort it for themselves as well by the Spirit.
Because fire is coming to melt the stones. The false stones will go away. The temporary Temples will be replaced by the Living God, the one they were designed to prepare us for.
One more thought on stones. Gemstones exist. For centuries people have honed and shaped them, They firm religions on them, think they can be charms against evil or charms to cast spells, evil or good. One scientific hand too them and discovered you can focus light through those stones and it can become a beacon to carry a message or a powerful tool for cutting and shaping. The laser was born.
God's word is the light of the world and his stone for focusing that light and turning it into a precise laser is the Word. We have to handle it with care or it can be used to shape things in ways God did not intend. We have to be aware of the power. but we have to also realize that it was given that power by the Creator to be used.
Read his Word above, consider it and we will go on. We will spend some time here because I want us to see it is not those End times battles that are so important. It is realizing their reason for even being.
Spend time considering the stones of our lives.
Oh, yes, and consider this too about those gems, from the description of the final Jerusalem, the city descended from Heaven at the end of our story, at the end of all these battles:
Re 21:17 And he measured its wall, a hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.
18 And the foundation of its wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.
19 And the foundations of the wall of the city had been adorned with every precious stone. The first foundation, jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;
20 the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, hyacinch; the twelfth, amethyst.
21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls. Respectively, each one of the gates was one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, as transparent glass.
22 And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty is its temple, even the Lamb.
(MKJV)
With all this End Times thing, this video and the song sum up the face of stone mountains we must sometimes climb and the way God lets us climb them even when He has made them huge. Even in the face of this world melting into something new and barely defined for us by God, we can look at the Spirit He has given you and I and feel the truth lift us against even a tsunami.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwgr_IMeEgA)
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