“Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Verse 38.
Note.—That which was to fill up their cup of iniquity was their final rejection and crucifixion of Christ, and their condemnation and persecution of His apostles and people after His resurrection. See Matt. 23:29-35; John 19:15; Acts 4-8.
5. Hearing these words, what questions did the disciples ask?
“Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Matt. 24:3.
Note.—Christ's answers to these questions are worthy of the most careful study. The destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish nation attending it are a type of the final destruction of all the cities of the world, and the overthrow of all nations. To some extent, therefore, the descriptions of the two great events seem to be blended. When Christ referred to the destruction of Jerusalem, His prophetic words reached beyond that event to the final conflagration when the Lord shall rise out of His place “to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,” and when the earth “shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” Isa. 26:21. Thus the entire discourse was given not for the early disciples only, but for those who were to live during the closing scenes of the world's history. During the discourse Christ did, however, give definite signs, both of the destruction of Jerusalem and of His second coming.
6. In His reply, how did Christ indicate that neither the end of the world nor of the Jewish nation was immediately at hand?
“Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” Verses 4-6.
7. What did He say of the wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes which were to precede these events?
“All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Verse 8.
Note.—These were to precede and culminate in the great calamity and overthrow, first, of Jerusalem, and finally of the whole world; for, as already noted, the prophecy has a double application, first, to Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, and secondly, to the whole world; the destruction of Jerusalem for its rejection of Christ at His first advent being a type of the destruction of the world at the end for its rejection of Christ in refusing to heed the closing warning message sent by God to prepare the world for Christ's second advent.