Ours was the abomination. He took the desolation.

“A Trouble that Will Be Cut Short”

(Matthew 24:15-22, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 22, 2008)

(John 4:19-26)…

Matthew 24:15-22 ¹⁵ "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, ¹⁸ and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. ¹⁹ And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! ²⁰ Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. ²² And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

Introduction – A complex question (3)

The disciples of Jesus Christ ask Him a very complex question. They were talking about the impressive temple building in Jerusalem, and He predicted its imminent destruction. Their question is this: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” This is more than one question, yet they and even Jesus largely treat the matter somehow as one question of endings and beginnings. These endings and beginnings are best understood through the idea of temple; the destruction of a building temple, the gathering of a body temple, and then the resurrection appearing of Christ and His church. What makes their question complicated is that these events began at the resurrection of Jesus and they are not yet completed. The old temple was destroyed, the new temple is being gathered, and we are still waiting for the final resurrection temple.

In a sense, this is one question. There are specific things that are said here that find a fulfillment in the destruction of the temple building in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. However, those very same statements have something to tell us about the final events at the coming again of the Lord. The Lord does not tell us to focus on guessing when He will return. He wants us to be spiritually aware of a change from the impressive stones of a building to the priority of gathering living stones into a body through the preaching of the gospel in an age of suffering.

The Abomination of Desolation – Past, present, and future (15)

Like the Old Testament prophets who went before Him, Jesus uses the building temple to talk about the body temple. Given that fact, what exactly is “the abomination of desolation?” It is (1) a disgrace that brings (2) destruction. This expression is from the Old Testament prophet Daniel. Daniel was prophesying during a time when the temple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed by the Babylonians and prior to the rebuilding of the temple by returning exiles. He speaks prophetically about a coming temple that is horribly profaned. The first of three fulfillments of this prophesy had already happened 200 hundred years before the death of Christ. A foreign ruler built a pagan altar in the temple. This was a horrible desecration. The second was the Roman desecration in AD 70, about forty years after Jesus spoke these words. If the first one was the past fulfillment of the abomination of desolation, the Roman desecration was the present. Yet these two things would not have been as important if not for this: that they were like parables of a third and final future fulfillment of this Daniel prophesy at the return of Jesus. In other words, there is a bigger abomination that is still coming, and it will signal the biggest desolation.

Jesus is using the past horror in an earlier temple to talk about a present horror in the temple of his contemporaries and a future horror in a temple at the time of His return. It should not surprise us that He would speak like this. Remember that the Old Testament prophets did this all the time. Remember also that the disciples had asked about both the destruction of the temple and about the sign of His coming again. Given what we have said about “temple” so far, are the wheels spinning in your minds? You know that the temple that the Romans destroyed was a building temple, but the temple that will be on the earth when the Lord returns will be a body temple. (Consider what Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.) In our day, an abomination from a Gentile army entering a Jewish temple; all that is a thing of the past. The temple that will be desecrated so horribly in the future is a body temple, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that we, the church, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. It must be this body temple that he refers to in 2 Thessalonians when he warns about the one “who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” That will happen in the church, not in any building in Jerusalem. The demands for worship of some false Christ who ends up being followed throughout the worldwide church will be the ultimate abomination that brings the ultimate desolation. Any earlier events were signposts pointing toward this larger and final trouble.

What to do when the Romans come (16-18)

Nonetheless, the particular fulfillment of this prophesy that the hearers of Jesus would have been most interested in was the one that he said was coming in their lifetime. Many people would die in the attack of the Romans upon Jerusalem. This would be a very difficult trial, so difficult that it could be spoken of with the kind of apocalyptic language that proves it to be a taste of the final Day of the Lord. What should everyone in Judea do when the Romans came? Run for their lives! They should not die to defend the old building temple. That day was gone. They should get out of the city as fast as they could when they saw the approach of the Roman armies who were bent on destroying the religious site of the Jews.

The trouble of the coming destruction (19-20)

Our Savior speaks with concern for the women and children in Jerusalem in that day. He is thinking of the trouble that will come to people as they try to make their escape. They may find that the weather or the Sabbath customs will create special challenges to the safety of those who are refugees. Jerusalem will not be a good place to be. The old temple will not be a safe haven. Jesus cares about this, and He wanted His disciples to know what to do. AD 70 would certainly not be the only trouble for the early Jewish Christians. The non-Christian Jews wanted to kill the body temple of the New Testament church. This too was a reason for fleeing, and the church was mercifully scattered at the time of the persecution of Stephen as recorded in Acts 7 and 8. Here was an early attack of the Antichrist spirit against the true temple of God. Yet God preserved a remnant as He had during Old Testament days.

Then and those days (21-22)

Of course, we are also interested in the future day of trouble for the body temple. As AD 70 was the worst of all times for the building temple, the brief period of most intense troubles immediately prior to the return of Christ will suddenly be the most horrible time of trial for Christ’s body temple. In verse 21 it is called a great tribulation, in fact the greatest in all history. It is hard to imagine that these words could have been entirely fulfilled in the first century, at least for the body temple. The trouble that the church will face immediately prior to the return of Christ will be extremely intense, but the period of every trial; past, present, or future, is in God’s hands.

This fact is an encouragement to us. If we are alive in that day, or if our children are alive in that day, we will have the wonderful benefit of this fact: The Lord will not keep his people in that greatest trial forever. If He forgot us at that worst hour no human being would be preserved to the end. He is able to cut short the times in those days. He does this for the sake of His beloved elect. That certainly should not surprise us, since it is just like the story of the cross. Christ has more than cut short the pain of His elect by His time on the cross. He has utterly removed the eternal punishment that was rightly against us. He did this for us. He will not leave us here to suffer forever in a time of great tribulation. This is also true of our individual lives. Have no fear. You do not have to live forever in this world of trouble. He will rescue you. He will not be late when He comes to bring you to your heavenly home.

What can we learn from tribulation past, present, and future?

Depending on where you are in your life here on earth, what I have just said may seem like a very distant matter or a very real concern. For many people it is their every thought. “How much longer will I have to bear the suffering that I face now?” I am sure that this becomes a more universal concern during a time of persecution, like the time that will come upon the church when a great adversary of God captures the hearts of so many who once claimed the name of Christian, and when the civil government becomes a weapon of warfare against those who love Christ. It will be an enormous challenge to live in a day where the tribulation will be so bad that it can honestly be said by the most credible judge of human affairs that times have never been so bad. We need to pray for strength now.

We do not all live in such a time as that today, but that’s not to say that our children may not live in that day, or that you will not face that kind of day in your individual life. Of course there are people in every age that face the most intense pain and trouble. For those who are looking for the coming of a resurrection temple, and face cancer or great loneliness, it would not at all be strange for the cry of their hearts to be this: “How long, O Lord?” In such a time, there are insights from this passage that can help a weary soul not only to endure, but to somehow have joy and even to prosper when life is as hard as it gets.

Let me offer you these two thoughts: First, God is in charge. Where is God while you are suffering? He is reigning. He is right where He was when His Son paid the price for your sins on the cross. Of course you and I cannot understand the depths of the challenges that we face by His providence. He does understand, and He is in charge. Take comfort in that fact. Second, and finally, God loves His temple. He always has and He always will. He loves you more than He loves the most beautiful mountain landscape, or the most amazing building anywhere. You are His. He cared about you when His Son died for you, and He knows how to shorten the days of Your troubles. You can trust Him through the worst suffering of body and soul. If necessary, He knows where to take you right now to keep you safe until the new morning comes, and He surely knows when to bring about the safe delivery of His glorious resurrection temple at the coming of His Son.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What is the “reader” supposed to “understand” about the “abomination of desolation?”

2. What is the Lord’s instruction to those who would face the coming attack of the Romans? Why should they flee?

3. What aspects of the passage seem to go beyond AD 70? How does this teaching compare to the prophets?

4. Why would the Lord say what He says in verses 19-22? How do these verses help us today?

Trouble, Even More Trouble, and Then...

“Beyond Trouble”

(Matthew 24:9-14, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 15, 2008)

Matthew 24:9-14 ⁹ "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. ¹⁰ And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. ¹¹ And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. ¹² And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³ But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Introduction – Two ages

Matthew 24 is one of a handful of chapters in the Bible that people tend to associate with something called “end-times.” The expression “end-times” does not precisely appear in the Bible. One phrase that is used is “the end of the ages.” Hebrews 9:26 says that Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” What this means is that there were several ages prior to the coming of Christ, but His death two thousand years ago signals the end of the ages. The author of Hebrews continues: “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” There is a turning point coming, and it is marked by the return of Christ. What follows from that turning point is the time of resurrection life which is called in several Bible passages the “age to come.”

The Bible system concerning the future is very simple. From here to eternity we have two ages: this age with all of its challenging opportunities, confusion, and death; and then the age to come, the age of eternal life. When does that coming age get here? That resurrection age, which we taste even now by the Spirit of God, comes fully when Christ returns. This is a very easy matter to establish biblically. Look at all the Bible passages that use the word “age” and this is what you will find: There is something that is called “this age” and there is something that can be referred to simply as “that age.” “That age” will come at the return of Christ. In this age we suffer and proclaim Christ’s death for sinners; in that age we live in the fullness of resurrection life. (Look at Mark 10:29-30 as an example of this.)

It will help you, as we go through this chapter to keep on thinking about “temple.” How does the idea of temple connect to the idea of these two ages? In the beginning of this age the temple in Jerusalem was soon destroyed by the Romans. By the time that this event happened a new temple was being gathered consisting of Jews and Gentiles. That new temple was a body temple, rather than a building temple. In this age the building temple had to go away, since it was part of an earlier time of shadows (the Old Testament). Now the body temple is being built up. If you see that, then you can easily understand that we are not going back to a building temple again. That would be a step back. When the body temple is fully gathered, then Christ will come. At that point the body temple will be given resurrection bodies because the age to come is a bodily and spiritual existence beyond the mortality of this present age.

“Then” – Beyond the birth pains (9)

The current age that we live in is an age of birth pains, as we saw last week. There are famines, wars, fears, and all kinds of troubles now, even for God’s loved ones. It is through suffering that the temple is being gathered. One day the gathering will be over. There is life beyond our troubles. There is birth beyond the early labor pains. There are also the final more intense pains just as the baby is about to be born. That day is referred to by one word in verse nine. It is simply called “then.” Now is the time of the gathering of the temple. That will reach a final culmination just as Christ is about to return. Jesus has spoken of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. That was at the beginning years of the gathering of His body temple. At the ending years of the gathering of that body temple will come certain events that will tell us that the “coming age” is coming very fast. What will be those signs? It is not earthquakes, famines, wars, false saviors, and persecutions. Those things are just the early birth pains for the new temple gathering time that has continued for these two thousand years. Those are worth thinking about as a reminder that a better day is coming, but they are not the final heaviest labor pains. What are those final pains?

Tribulation and apostasy (9-10)

It appears that there will be more troubles as we reach the time of the coming of the resurrection temple. Part of what we can expect is an increase of intensity and numbers in the very things that have been seen all along. Throughout these two thousand years the church has faced persecution. It will be much worse then. There have been martyrs since the beginning of the Christian church, sometimes more and sometimes less. It will be much worse then. How much worse? Verse 9 says, “You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” Verse 10 tells us that “many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.” You may think that times are very bad for the body temple of the Lord, and it certainly is true in some places. Nonetheless, we are not there yet. We are not hated by all nations yet. In some of the nations where Christianity has been hated in recent years, there is a move toward greater openness to the Christian faith as millions of people are still being converted.

Confusion and lawlessness (11-12)

There is one other thing that will happen during the heaviest labor. There will be a tremendous increase in false prophets, lawlessness, and lovelessness within the church. I must admit that we do have some people that stand out in our day as sad examples of false shepherds. There is also plenty of lawlessness in the church, and the love of many seems very cold, since it does not seem to lead to action. This is a disgrace, but things were even worse in the Middle Ages, and then came the Reformation. We have only to read the New Testament to see that this is not a new problem. At times in church history there was such lawlessness in the church and such a loss of the meaning of the death of Christ as our only hope that it appeared to the faithful that the whole gospel was barely known. Yet even The Middle Ages were obviously not the most intense labor pains, since the end did not come at that time.

The time we are in today is full of the problems mentioned in verses 11-12, particularly in Europe and to some degree in North America. Yet it is not as bad as it has been in other days, even here. Do you know when we had our lowest percentages of church attendance in the United States? That happened around the time of the American Revolution. I know that we have very significant challenges now, but it used to be much worse, and in some places in the world things are much, much better than they ever have been. The point is that this age was never supposed to be easy. It is bad, but we are not at the very end yet. You should not think that God cannot use our little efforts in New England. If the Roman Catholic Church is running Bible studies in English when they used to burn Wycliffes, then I am not sure that we are at the very end yet. When are we going to switch from normal birth pains to the heaviest labor? Don’t be too eager for heavier labor! Of course, it could happen soon, but we are not supposed to know when that will be. We should be able to tell that it has not happened yet. We are still in an earlier stage of pain. Here’s what we need to avoid: We don’t want to be the first-time mother in early labor who is absolutely sure that it could never hurt more than this. It has been worse. It could get worse. One day it will be much worse.

Endurance and proclamation (13-14)

There is more information concerning the coming pains later in this chapter and in 2 Thessalonians 2, but we will deal with that on another day. The question for us now is, “What do we do?” Verses 13 and 14 tell us. First, you must endure. This is a time to keep on going, not to give up with a lot of negative thinking about how America is a post-Christian culture. It is very possible that America was never the New Jerusalem, and that we always needed to think more about the progress of the world-wide church than we did about the progress of the United States. By the way, from what little I have seen in this day of early labor pains, this is one of the best fallen places to live in the world. It just is not our home, and the best President in the world is not going to make this nation the New Temple.

We need to endure. What if a woman wants to run a marathon, and she can only walk a mile at present? She may need to do some endurance training, since a marathon is decidedly more trouble than walking a mile. How is your spiritual endurance training going? Some quick guilt trips for you: If you have never read the whole Bible all the way through, start reading. If you have read the Bible all the way through many times, start reading, and while you are at it, start thinking, start believing, start hoping, start praying, because the most difficult challenges for the church are still ahead of us, and the worst trial in your life could happen any day. You are the temple of the Lord in Christ, and your death will probably come before the Day of the Lord comes. You really do need to be ready.

One more duty: There is another thing that we must do as a church. We must preach the gospel of the kingdom everywhere. Many people argue that the gospel already has been preached throughout the whole world. Really? When did that happen? When did the apostles first reach New Hampshire? Why is Wycliffe Bible Translators still working? There are so many places where we need to start churches. We need to keep on going, and not lose heart.

The end will come (14)

Now, beyond the guilt trip, we need to remember the gospel that the church must proclaim. There is a Savior who died for sinners. He is gathering and perfecting His chosen people. He did this, not because we are good, but because we are not. One day the end will come. If you have a sense of the difference between this age and the coming age, you know that the end of this age is very good news for those who are in Christ. Whatever our theology of the end may be, we still have some more gathering of the Temple of the Lord to do now. The end will come, but that end is not today. The labor pains are still ten minutes apart. By the grace of God, one day the new resurrection temple will be fully born. Let us endure, and let us proclaim the death of Christ for unworthy sinners.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What kind of tribulation is Jesus referring to in these verses? What do we know about the “when” of tribulation?

2. What does Christ mean that the love of many will grow cold?

3. What can we explicitly say about those who endure to the end and those who do not from these verses?

4. Has the gospel been preached to all the nations yet?

I Want to Be There

“Christ the Temple”

(Matthew 24:1-8, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 8, 2008)

Matthew 24:1-8 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. ² But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." ³ 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 close of the age?" ⁴ And Jesus answered them, "See that no one leads you astray. ⁵ For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. ⁶ And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Introduction – The story of the temple

Everyone knows that there is a God. Romans 1 tells us that. Everyone knows that the beauty and order of this world had to have a starting point, and the starting point could not have been nothing. Nothing cannot produce something. The starting point actually has to be someone rather than an inanimate something, because intelligence is required in order to produce a world of such great complexity. Human beings are a wonder. We long for something more. At least in some sense, we long for communion with this Being that we reason must exist. The story of the temple is an answer to that longing in man.

Temple is the place where God dwells with man. This is the place where He chooses to make Himself known to us. It is first a place in heaven where God dwells. The Lord is in His holy temple. In that heavenly sanctuary He hears the cries of His people. Power goes out from there and changes things here. God authorized the building of an earthly moving tabernacle, and then later a stationary temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, according to a heavenly pattern. God made it a place of assembly, a place of peace with God. The Lord showed us what communion with Him costs by making it a place of animal sacrifice, ultimately fulfilled in the blood of a perfect Substitute who would take away our sin and make peace for us with God. The temple was a place of praise, because when there is peace with God through a perfect sacrifice, the people will be restored to the right posture of worshippers who have the privilege of being in the presence of One who is very far above them. They worship in His temple not by compulsion, but by delight.

The story of “temple” is complex and varied. Let me give you some of the high points. It moves from God’s eternal dwelling in the heavens, to the Garden of Eden, to the Ark of Noah, to the tabernacle moving through the wilderness, to the building on the top of Mount Zion, to the vision of Ezekiel when in exile in Babylon of a glorious new temple in a new Jerusalem, to the gathering of God’s worshipping people during the New Covenant, and ultimately to the descending of an eternal heavenly dwelling of God upon a gloriously new heaven and earth with no more sin. The story of the temple is the story of the Bible. The story of the temple is the story of the longing of man to be with God, and the determination of God to glorify His holy Name by answering that longing.

The death of the temple (1-2)

You don’t have to look long at a rendering of Jerusalem from the time of Jesus in order to see the obvious point that, despite all the other interesting and impressive places in the city (the fortress of Antonia, the Hasmonean Palace, the Hippodrome, the Theater, even Herod’s Palace), the Old Testament temple towered above them all by far. I had never even heard about some of the other places that I just mentioned until I began to prepare this message. Have you ever heard of the Hippodrome? It was built like a Roman circus as a place for chariot races. I don’t know if Jesus ever went to the Hippodrome or to the Jerusalem Theater, but I know that He went to the temple.

You did not have to be religious to be impressed with the temple. Anyone new to Jerusalem and just walking around the city would have said, “Wow! What is that!” The disciples had been to the temple. All men were commanded to come to the temple at least three times pre year for the most important festivals. It was impressive to look at. The position of it on the highest point and the towering structure above all the other smaller buildings, the wall, the courts, the open space on the inside that would have drawn you in to the main building itself, all these were impressive. Nonetheless we tend to say nothing about the familiar, even when the familiar is amazing. Yet the disciples do say something about it. Like everything else that happens between Matthew 21 and the end of this gospel this must be for a reason. There is not one detail in this last week before the cross and the resurrection of Christ that is accidental. They brought up the wonder of the temple because Jesus has something to say about the destruction of this great building. Jesus says in verse 2 literally, “There shall not be left here stone upon stone.”

In the temple there was a curtain separating the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple. Only the High Priest could go into that area behind the curtain, only once per year, and only with blood. In just a few days something amazing is going to happen and that curtain of the temple will be torn in two from top to bottom. Less than forty years after this point the temple will be destroyed by the Romans, and their will be a complete cessation of the entire Old Testament sacrificial system. It is not as if people today don’t care about the area today. In 2007 some rabbis entered the Temple Mount, which is not allowed by the chief religious authorities in Israel today. An editorial in one newspaper criticized these rabbis of “knowingly and irresponsibly bringing a burning torch closer to the most flammable hill in the Middle East.” Are people interested in the Temple Mount even today? Most definitely, though the temple in Jerusalem “died” as a living structure nearly two thousand years ago, just as Jesus had said.

When will these things be… the sign of the end of the age? (3)

When the disciples hear the Lord speak about the death of the temple, they have two questions. They may think that they only have one, but the chapter that follows is the answer to two questions. The first is, “When will these things be?” meaning the death of the temple. The second is, “What will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” They seem to connect the return of Christ with the end of the age. It is a fact that when our Lord returns, one age will be over and a new age will have fully come. Though the destruction of the temple may seem less important to us, you can be sure that it is very important to them. This event will also mark the ending of an age. The Old Covenant system of the Law with all the rules of animal sacrifice will be finished when it is no longer possible to do temple worship, that is, when the temple itself is gone.

See that no one leads you astray (4-5)

We will spend several weeks looking at the Lord’s answer to these two questions. He begins by warning His disciples about false Christs. The disciples are primarily interested in the temple. His answer is first about the Christ or Messiah. This is interesting, because we know that the true Christ is the new Temple. There will be those who will try to present themselves as the Messiah. They will be leading people astray. They will not be the true dwelling place of God. They are imposters, and there will be many of them. By speaking about many false Christs that will lead many astray, we have some indication that there will be enough time for that prediction to happen. In other words, this is not going to be all over until there have been many false Christs, and this succession of varied liars each needs enough time to lead many people astray. That has proven to take time. The warning for the disciples is that they need to be careful not to be among those who are led astray by these false Messiah figures.

The birth of the new temple (6-8)

There will also be wars, rumors of wars, nations coming and going, famines, and earthquakes happening in various places. If you consider these events, you are right to conclude that such things normally take time as well. The point that Christ is making here is that these things are NOT the sign of His return. It is amazing that so many people have seen these as revelatory signs of the return of Christ, when He says here very directly that while these things must take place, “the end is not yet.” They are called here “birth pains” and we need to pay attention to them.

Since the beginning of the New Testament era there have been many earthquakes, wars, and famines. This tells us that we have been through a long period of birth pains. A woman has labor pains when a child is about to be born. The child that Jesus speaks of is the coming age of resurrection. Jesus is saying here that we will be feeling the birth pains of that coming new age until a new Day is finally born. That birth will not fully happen until Christ returns.

That coming day is the day of a new Temple. Jesus came as the new Temple of God full of the Holy Spirit, and we are the new temple of God in Him, for we too are said to be a place where God’s Spirit dwells. Ezekiel spoke of a coming future temple where a river would flow out from that place. In the middle of one of the feasts Jesus went up into the old temple and began teaching. He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:38) The Apostle John goes on to add this, “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Have you received this gift?

At the end of the Bible we are told of a new glorious temple/city. This is what John says in Revelation 21:22. “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” Jesus is the Temple. The temple had to die, and He did that for us. In John 2:19 Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” When Jesus died, it was an announcement of the death of the Old Testament system, but it was also the death of the One who was full of the presence of God without measure. When the Temple died a new Temple in Him began to be born with His resurrection. You absolutely need to be part of that Temple. Don’t let yourself get too distracted by the Hippodrome. You need to be born spiritually now. That’s why you’re feeling those birth pains.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. Why would the disciples of Jesus be pointing out the temple to Him? What makes it so impressive?

2. What is going to happen to the temple? When will that happen?

3. What were the disciples’ two questions? Did they know that they were asking two questions?

4. How does Jesus’ begin to answer their questions? Why does He start with these points?

The story of a prophet's life and death

“Blessed Is He…”

(Matthew 23:29-39, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 1, 2008)

Matthew 23:29-39 ²⁹ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰ saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' ³¹ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. ³³ You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴ Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, ³⁵ so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶ Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. ³⁷ "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! ³⁸ See, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹ For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Introduction – From gentle warning to final woe

The story of the Old Testament prophets is progressive. Though it would be incorrect to call the words of Moses to Israel a gentle warning, as the centuries moved forward to the prophets just before the exile of Judah, it was clear that the loss of the land simply would not be turned back. There was a movement from warning to final woe in the collected writings of the prophets starting with the earliest prophetic activity and moving to the latest prophets. John the Baptist and even Jesus were in that stream of that prophetic message as the final prophets to Israel and Judah.

A major part of the message of the Old Testament prophets had always been God’s indictment against the people of the Law. Keep in mind that even this indictment was within the context of God’s great work of grace. It was important for their sake and for ours that everyone had an understanding that we could never win peace with God through any system of law. How do you do that in any kind of full way, and still save people by grace through faith? (This is the only way anyone can ever be saved after the fall of Adam – by grace through faith in a Substitute that takes away sin.) A major function of the Law was to teach us that we could never have peace with God through Law. How do You save people by grace and teach them that they could not be saved through Law at the same time? You do that by making the prize of obedience the keeping of the land of Canaan as an inheritance and not entrance into heaven. Of course, the people will fail according to the Law and they will lose the land as a nation, but many will still be given heaven. Will they win heaven by the Law? Of course not. No one can be justified through the Law after Adam’s fall. They will be given heaven by God’s grace through faith in the work of a Perfect Substitute.

That Perfect Substitute is the one who spoke these woes about the Pharisees in Matthew 23. In the passage before us, He spoke in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets. By this point they were not on the early end of that tradition. The time for warning was long over. This was the time for announcing a final woe concerning the nation of Israel, particularly since the Pharisees had turned their version of law into a sure way to eternal righteousness.

If we had lived in the days of our fathers (29-32)

The Pharisees not only misinterpreted the Law of God. They also flattered themselves when they read the Prophets. They did not see themselves as guilty according to God’s indictment of His nation. Their true guilt was not only as individuals but as a part of the community that had rejected and even killed the prophets. They honored dead prophets, but they were unwilling to listen to a Living One. They imagined that they would have gladly listened to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, or Malachi, but they had been dead for centuries. They built monuments to them and honored them by decorating their tombs. In doing this they rightly identified themselves as the physical descendants of the men who persecuted and killed the prophets, but they rejected the idea that they were the spiritual descendants of such men. The only way to test their claim would be to place a true living prophet in front of them. Would they listen to such a man, or would they want to kill him? We don’t have to guess at the answer. They had Jesus, the final and greatest Prophet, and they were actively conspiring to murder Him. In this way they would fill up the measure of their fathers’ guilt. In their violation of the Law, they deserved the curse of losing the inheritance of the land. They also deserved a much more serious eternal penalty through there own sins and through the sin of Adam. But God provided a way of grace through Jesus Christ. Having shown their hatred for God and His Word through their mishandling of the Law, would they now finally reject the One who was the only hope for eternal life? Many would do this, but some would actually later repent and be baptized. What a thing it is that there is a way for us to heaven through Jesus Christ, though we once mocked Him and rejected Him!

How are you to escape (33)

In verse 33, Jesus calls them serpents and the offspring of snakes. We should not miss the connection here with the serpent from Genesis 3, Satan. They think that they believe in the prophets, just as they imagine that they keep the Law. But the Law and the Prophets are from God, and they are not really following Him. They are the spiritual offspring of those who killed the prophets in former days and even of God’s worst adversary, that fallen angel who deceived the woman in the garden and brought about the fall of mankind through the sin of one man.

People like the Pharisees deserve death, and in our sin, we have been people like this. It is so important that we not flatter ourselves as they did, thinking that we would have loved the prophets, and that we keep the Law of God. This kind of thinking is an insult to the cross, as is our continuing in sin. The question that Jesus asks in verse 33 is an extremely important one. “How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” The word that is translated hell here originally described a specific place outside of Jerusalem that was associated with dead and unclean things. This place, the Valley of Hinnom or what became known as Gehenna, was a fitting picture and symbol of what John calls the second death, the place of eternal judgment based on the justice of God. How will any of us escape that place? Just as removal from the land of Canaan was a picture of warning, so is every physical death. It reminds us of God and His justice. I am not talking just about the deaths of especially rebellious people. I am talking about your death and mine. If you need any proof that you will never make it with God by law, the decay of aging and the sentence of physical death insist on this point for all of us. As the loss of the land made this point to Israel under the Old Covenant, the decay and death of every man should speak to us of our sin. Jesus says to us, “How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” How will we escape? We certainly will not do it through the Law.

Prophets from God (34-36)

The prophets, men who came in the name of the Lord, have some answers to this question. They spoke to Israel and Judah largely about two things. First, as mentioned, they made the case against Israel as a covenant-breaking people who would be thrust out of the land. Second, they were heralds of a coming New Covenant, a covenant that God would keep through the obedience of a future Prophet who would offer Himself up as the Lamb of God.

These two messages from the prophets are to be embraced together. First, we are guilty according to the Law and surely deserve God’s curse upon us. Second, the Lord has provided a way of peace for us in the covenant relationship secured by Christ’s own obedience and blood. This will be an everlasting covenant. The arrangement of the Law for the nation of Israel was temporary. It was an important illustration, but it was part of a larger more permanent picture of grace through a Substitute. Some of the Pharisees would finally be able to embrace that message. Others would not, and like Saul before He became Paul, they would think that they were serving God by persecuting the church. They would hate and kill others who came in the name of the Lord, and in doing this they would bring upon themselves all the guilt that led to the end of the period of the Law, the destruction of the temple, and the loss of the nation of Israel. Jesus will have more to say about this in the next chapter of Matthew’s gospel.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem… (37-39)

The time had fully come for the end of Jerusalem in their rejection of the Law, the prophets, and the Messiah. The nation deserved to be gone. Each of us deserve to be gone too. Yet God will surely find a way to work out his plan of grace for His elect. Surely He can change a blind Saul to see that it is Jesus the Son of God whom he is persecuting when He drags Christians from their homes. Then that Saul will say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” when the message of grace through Christ is preached. Until you are able to bless the Lord and His messengers you are missing something. When you are able to see the blessing, then even your death can become a testimony not only to the sanction of the Law, but to the grace of God who rescues His people out of this world of decay. Your death becomes a very important fact of God’s grace, who works all things together for the good of those who love the message and the messenger. They love God and are called according to His purpose. If He works all things for their good, He certainly works their death for their good. As Paul says in Romans, not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Also in Philippians Paul insists that it is better for us to die and to be with the Lord. God has made us willing to be gathered into this New Jerusalem above.

Many prophets died at the hands of evil men. Death is a very complicated topic. Often we rightly decide not to comment on the death of a person. There is nothing we can say. Or is it that there is too much to say? It is all very confusing and seems to be contradictory. Let’s conclude by thinking of the meaning of the murder of the martyr Stephen at the hands of Pharisees in Acts 7. That death told at least three stories. First, it told us what every death tells us, that death has spread to all men, for all men sin and die, even good Stephen. Second, it spoke of the horrible evil of men who hate and kill God’s prophets. Finally and most importantly, it told us of the grace of God; grace for Stephen for he soon was in the presence of the Lord, but grace also for others, for by his death a persecution began that led to the scattering of many preachers to far-off places. Those men preached the same Word that you hear today of grace for guilty sinners through Jesus’ death for us. What a blessing it is to come in the name of the Lord!

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What does it appear that the Pharisees did with the tombs of the prophets? Why was that ironic?

2. What was the story of the prophets from Moses through Jesus?

3. Why would Jesus express such a love for Jerusalem? How will that love be finally fulfilled?

4. What does it mean to say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord?”