485 Covid Bible study Matthew 24

In this Bible study podcast, the host discusses Matthew chapter 24, verses 1-4, where Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple and answers his disciples' questions about the signs of his coming and the end of the world. The temple was a magnificent structure, but Jesus foretells its destruction, which was fulfilled in 70 A.D. He also emphasizes that his kingdom is not of this world and that the earth will be destroyed by fire in the future. The disciples were initially expecting an earthly king, but Jesus teaches them about the eternal kingdom. Welcome, dear listeners, to Sacred Journey Through the Pages of God's Word. I'm your guide in this adventure, Steve Kitts, and I'm truly grateful that you've joined me in another session of During Bible Study podcast. Before we look closer into these verses that will illuminate your heart and your mind today, let us pause for a moment in prayer. Hey guys, we welcome you to this Thursday's Bible study. We're going to be covering chapter 24 of Matthew. So Matthew chapter 24, we're going to do verses 1 through 4 because there's a lot in those little verses. We want to go ahead and open up in the prayer, and then we'll go ahead and get started in this. We thank you and we love you and we praise you, God, for letting us have this opportunity. Lord, Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you, Lord, for your glorious, wonderful power. We know, Lord, that whatever the world has going on, Lord, it doesn't affect what the heavens have and what your plan is for us. Lord, we thank you, Lord, that we have the opportunity, Lord, to share this with others. We thank you, Lord, that we have our faith in you, Lord, and we can trust that everything will be all right and that things will be taken care of and be done the way you want them to be done. We trust you, Lord Jesus, and we always will. We thank you, Lord, and we have a special request for those that are sick. We want you to step in and show your power, Lord, of healing and recovery for those that are touched, Lord. We thank you, Lord, and we praise you. In your holy name we beg. It's in the Holy Spirit to help us, guide us through this Bible study so we can put these words in our hearts and use them for your glory. In your precious name, amen. All right. Hi, guys. We're in chapter 24 of Matthew. We're going to do verses 1 through 4, and we'll go ahead and get started. There's a lot in it. Verses 1 through 4 go together, and that's why I like grouping things together and we'll work on getting these all sorted out as we go through the chapter. And Jesus is, you know, really working here and helping his disciples. Remember I said before that he quit teaching to the multitude. Now he's teaching and working with his disciples and teaching them. So this section forms Jesus' last discord in his most pathetic and apostolic messages of the coming of the end of the world or the present age as the disciples knew it, you know, how everything that they knew and thought about and their whole world is fixing to come to a halt. Discord means communication of thought by words like talk and conversation. So this is his last major conversation with them and his last teaching that he's going to do as a big group. While the message includes a prediction of the imminent fall of Jerusalem, it goes far beyond to the point of us to the distant future during the time of the Gentiles. It will continue to the age of the Great Tribulation. Jesus left the city and crossed the Kidron Valley and went east to Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives from which he could look down on the temple courtyard. At this place, his disciples ask him three questions and we'll cover these three questions because they're real important, but they grouped them all together. The first question they ask, when shall these things be? These things mean the destruction of the temple that Jesus talked about earlier. And second was, what shall the signs of thy coming, for the coming of being as king, and then the third, and of the end of the world? What age or what is the sign of the end of the world? Therefore, the entire discourse must be looked upon as answering all three of these questions. So verse 1, Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, or 24, verse 1. And Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him to show him the building of the temple. Buildings of the temple, this temple was begun by Herod the Great in 20 B.C. and still was under construction when the Romans destroyed it in 7 A.D., 70 A.D. At the time of Jesus' ministry, at this time right now, the temple was one of the most impressive structures in the world, made of massive rocks of stone covered with gold ornaments. Some of the stones of the temple complex measured 40 by 2, or 12 by 12, 40 feet, and by 12 foot by 12 foot, and that's a huge rock. And it was expertly quarried to fit perfectly one to another. There wasn't any cracks or crevices. They were butted up against each other. Perfect as far as stone could be. The temple buildings were made of gleaming white marble, and the whole eastern wall of the large main structure was covered with gold plates that reflected the morning sun, making a spectacle of the visible, for a long distance, for miles you could see it. It would just shine and glitter, and people would go, ooh, what's that? It's amazing how beautiful this temple was. The entire temple mound had been enlarged by Herod's engineers by means of the large retaining walls and vaulted chambers, the south side and the southeastern corner. By this means, the large courtyard area atop the temple mound was effectively doubled. It was enlarged. Herod added more beauty to it. He was going, you know, what can I do to make it prettier, and then I'm going to get credit for it. The whole temple complex was magnificent by any standard, and the disciples' conversation had been prompted with Jesus' words when He said in Matthew 23 and 38, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. They were undoubtedly wondering how a site so spectacular, so great and wonderful could be left desolate, just like today. You know, two months ago, we couldn't even imagine that we would be made to stay home, not even to go out to meet or to greet and go to church and do anything. There was a lot going on. We just couldn't imagine, just like His disciples couldn't imagine how a change was coming and things were going to be different than what they are. They couldn't imagine it. Verse 2, And Jesus said unto them, See you not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall be thrown down. Not to be left here one stone upon another. These words were literally fulfilled in 70 A.D. Titus, a Roman general, built a large wooden scaffold and put it all around the temple building. He piled them so high with wood and other flammable items and then set it on fire. The heat from the fires were so intense that the stones literally crumbled from the heat. The rubble was then sifted through so they could retrieve the melted gold and the remaining of the ruins were thrown down into the Kenrock Valley. This Kenrock Valley is a gatherer of debris, bad leftovers of junk, a lot of stuff. We'll go into Kenrock Valley later on, but it's an important area where things are discarded and this is where they threw the rubble. Now Jesus was speaking pathetically of the destruction of the temple that He loved so well. This was the temple where He had driven out the money changers. He had taught reverence of the house of God, that it should be a house of prayer instead of a money racket. When Jesus, who was the Lord of the temple, left, it was desolate. Outward magnificence was gone when the holiness was gone. When Jesus left, the Shekinah glory left with Him. And then in less than 40 years, this temple would be destroyed in a bloody, nasty battle. Verse 3, this is Matthew chapter 24 and verse 3. And as He sat upon the Mount of Olives, His disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming in the end of the world? The Mount of Olives, where He sat, was a small range of several summits. Like the highest elevation was 2,723 feet, running north-south for two and a half miles. The range overlooked Jerusalem from the east across the Kidron Valley. Jesus often went to the Mount of Olives to teach and to pray and even to find rest. He knew that place well, the Mount of Olives. The range overlooked Jerusalem in the east. And the western slope near the base was a spot known as the Garden of Gethsemane. This is where Jesus agonized in prayer the night before He was crucified. You'll find that in Luke 22, 39-46 and then again in Mark 14 and 32. Jesus fiddly used Mount Olive here to deliver one of His major pathetic discourses in both Matthew 24 and 25. Both these chapters will have one of His major, the last speaking that He was going to do with the group. Since from here, He would ascend to heaven in Acts 1, 9-12. And then He would be returned according to Zacchaeus 14-4, the return of His second coming. Now these disciples had all things gathered together in one group when they asked and talked to Him. They said the three questions. One, when shall these things be? Two, what shall be the sign of Thy coming? And three, end of the end of the world. Now question one, when will the temple be destroyed? The physical temple will be destroyed in less than 40 years. The temple of Jesus' body will be destroyed in a few days. And He's been telling them all along that He's going to be crucified. And I'm not sure if they don't believe Him or they're hoping that it doesn't happen. But He's telling them ahead of time what to expect. Now just like the temple, we talked about it being destroyed by fire when Titus destroyed it in 70 AD. The earth is going to be destroyed by fire in the next time around. Now question two, what will be the sign of Thy coming? And Luke 19-11 records that the disciples still supposing that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. They wanted a king and a ruler here and to push out the Romans and the people that ruled in this day. But that was not what Jesus was about. He was about our eternity and He wanted our forever to be what we look forward to. Some of the disciples that followed Jesus because they wanted a king on earth. We will see later after the crucifix that they had lost hope because their king had been killed. The destruction of the temple in verse 2 did not fit the, this is a tough word for me to say, eschological which means relating to death, judgment and final destiny of a soul and humankind. The eschological scheme they envisioned so they asked for clarification. Jesus addressed their questions in reverse order. Describing prophetic signs of His coming actually a series of signs in verse 4-35. When addressing their question about the timing of these events beginning in verse 36. When they asked about His coming they did not envision His second coming in the far off future. They were speaking of His coming out as Messiah and an event they no doubt anticipated would occur right now presently in their day. Even if they were conscious of His approaching death which they had plainly, He had prophesied to them constantly on repeated occasions over and over that they would not anticipate His ascension into heaven as a long intervention of church life. However, when Jesus used the term Parasus in His discord, He used it in a technical sense as referring to His second coming. Now verse 4, And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. Jesus in reply to their question first gives them caution to beware of a deception. They were to be constantly on guard because many would rise up and deceive the people. Many shall come in My name, not in the name or by authority of Jesus or claiming to be one of His followers and to be sent by Him but in the name of the Messiah or claiming to be the Messiah. Jesus warned them the very first thing that there would be deceivers out there. His first answer to them on their question was, Take heed that no man deceive you. And He could tell us that today because we could be easily deceived and that's why we want to do this Bible study so we can get more of the Word in us and we can follow Christ's instructions that He wrote down for us and taught us how to act and what to do and we have to be aware against those that would try to deceive us. There were even deceivers then as there are now, not at the magnitude that there will be towards the end days, but beware that the devil was trying to use you against fellow Christians without you knowing it. He could twist and turn things and even if you look at somebody and you have a thought in your mind, you're not even thinking about them but you see them and they think that you're making a mean face to them or a blank stare and not even look back, the devil can try to turn that around and use that in saying that you don't like them or you've got something against them and that's how the devil works. So you've got to be careful how you come across and don't let things deceive you because Christ is love and when somebody's got love, you can see it and you can feel it in their actions and their views so be mindful of that and don't be quick to judge or find fault with somebody. Protect your mind against talking about or talking to fellow Christians about things that would hurt them. Not saying never talk to somebody if the spirit leads you to, just saying it's easy for some harmful or heated argument or disagreement to come about. We have to be careful and mindful and speak to them like Jesus would. If somebody's doing something wrong, Jesus don't wag his finger and point at them and say, you know, you're wrong, you're wrong. He gives them what the Bible says and how it says to correct it. So we don't want to go against somebody and just flat out tell them that they're wrong. We tell them what the Bible says and the Bible's never wrong. So if we tell them what does say of the Lord, then we're in the right. And still be mindful, let the spirit lead you. Don't just see somebody doing something wrong and go over to them without first consulting the spirit and having the spirit guide you because if you follow the Holy Ghost prompt, you'll never go wrong. Things will always just be great and wonderful. Not an easy road to always go, but definitely the spirit makes it easier. All right, well that's verses 1 through 4. Next Tuesday we'll go 5 through 14, and that's a big group. And I know we have a lot to cover in that. Hopefully one day we'll get back together so we can sit down and physically face-to-face go over these. But verses 1 through 14 is a lot of good teaching that Jesus is teaching His followers. So at this time, my wife told me that I need to go ahead and take prayer requests from y'all and let you know that I love you and that I will lift you up to Christ as often and as many times as I can. I'm sorry this is so short, but like I say, I'm trying to group them into sections that they go together with. So when we hit this next section, it's a bigger section, but it all works together for one part. So we thank you and we love you. Go ahead and leave your comments and your prayer requests after this is over with. We'll go ahead and close in a prayer. We thank you for sharing this with us and being a part of it. God bless you all. Lord, Heavenly Father, we thank You and we praise You, Lord, that You're above all things, Lord Jesus. We know, Lord, that You hear our cries and You hear when we pray, Lord, and You know what we need, Lord, before we even know it, Lord. You know the future, Lord, and we thank You and we praise You for it. We're going to give You the glory, Lord, that You're going to heal our land, Lord, and we thank You, Lord, that You're pulling us back to You, Lord. We thank You and we praise You. In Your holy name we beg, bless everyone that comes in contact with this Word. Let the Holy Ghost teach them and learn with them, Lord Jesus. And we thank You and we praise You. In Your holy name we beg. Amen. Thank you.