OCTOBER 05 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#30 “Do you not see all these things?” (Matthew 24:02)

 

OCTOBER 05  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#30

 “Do you not see all these things?”  (Matthew 24:02)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Lord there is no circumstance in my life that is beyond what

 You can handle and I pray for forgiveness today for letting 

“worldly doubt” creep into my thoughts. I realize that I am effectively

 saying with my “doubt” that there is a circumstance that I am 

having to deal with myself because I do not have “faith” in God’s Ability

 to Provide and I fall back on the “WORLDLY lie” that

 “I’ll have to do it myself!” — Depending on "self" is the formula 

for "failure" and the “Truth” in my life is that God has ALWAYS

 Provided Abundantly for ALL my needs just like He Promised! 

For me to “doubt” God in any way, form, or fashion is bordering on “sin”

 at the least and is a full-blown “sin” at the worst! Lord, I repent of 

my “doubt” and turn to praying for others and looking for opportunities

 to “serve” You doing “kingdom work” — Lord keep me busy 

“serving You” instead of wallowing in self-pity and doubt so that my

 JOY may be made complete in You and my “doubt” will be destroyed! 

  AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus is spending His last couple of days on earth clearing up 

and cleaning up problems that are preventing many of God’s 

chosen people from “entering” the kingdom or as Jesus pronounced in

 Woe #1: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 

For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; 

for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who

 are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13) 

Once Jesus addressed the source of the “big” problem He now turns

 to His disciples and begins Teaching them what is about to happen

 to Israel because of their “hypocrisy” and the nation for following

 the “doctrines and traditions of men” instead of following the 

“Commands of God”. Jesus started the Lesson of what happens

 to a nation that “rejects” God with a Question that would focus our

 attention on the main point of the Lesson — Jesus began this

 Lesson with the Question: “Do you not see…” (Matthew 24:2) 

which introduced the scenario of the destruction of the temple in 

Jerusalem that His disciples had just admired for its physical grandeur.

 When Jesus stated, “Assuredly, I say to you…” His disciples knew Jesus

 was going to say something very important and then Jesus continued,

 “not one stone [of this grand temple you are admiring] 

shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down”

 (Matthew 24:2)

 which indicated the total destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

 This Question is similar to the Question Jesus asked His disciples

 while He was Teaching them about the 

“leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees” 

when Jesus had asked His disciples point blank, 

“Do you not yet understand…” 

and again, “How is it that you do not understand…?”. 

Jesus was always checking with His disciples to make sure

 that they truly “understood” what He was trying to Teach in each

 Lesson and Jesus always kept with it until He was sure that they

 “knew what HE was Teaching them” — Jesus kept asking until

 we read that after checking with them several times that — 

“Then [His disciples] understood…” (Matthew 16:6-12) 

Jesus also had asked the same Question of Peter when Jesus 

was Teaching that the Pharisees were “blind leaders of the blind…” 

and Peter had asked Jesus to “Explain this parable to us…” 

and Jesus said,

 “Are you also still without understanding? 

Do you not yet understand [My lesson on what defiles a man]?” 

Jesus is concerned about His disciples “understanding” because Jesus

 had started the parable on what defiles a man with this statement:

 “Hear and understand.” (Matthew 15:10-20) 

Therefore when Jesus starts this Lesson with the Question: 

“Do you not see all these things?” (Matthew 24:2) 

that He is clearly saying 

“Do you not yet understand [all these things I have been doing 

to clean the temple and turn Israel back to God]?” 

Maybe all of us should reflect on what we have seen Jesus do in our lives

 and know that He wants us to “understand” — I guess this would be

 a good time to take God’s advice when God said of Jesus,

 “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.

 Listen to Him” (Matthew 17:5)

OCTOBER 04 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#30 “Do you not see all these things?” (Matthew 24:02)

 

OCTOBER 04  THE JESUS QUESTIONS   JQ#30 

 “Do you not see all these things?”  (Matthew 24:02)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer    

JESUS, Lord thank You for the answered prayer for the family and 

for the opportunity to “witness” to two of our granddaughters 

yesterday by “living Christ” — Lord I thank You for the moving of the

 Holy Spirit in our family and thank You for the vision of how You 

are going to bless the “parents” through the “faith” of their “children”!

 Lord Jesus, I pray that Your Holy Spirit will always keep me aware

 of how important it is that we live our daily lives for You — for yesterday

 I saw first hand the fruits of following You day-in-and-day-out 

with our daily lives because the grandkids are noticing Jesus in our 

home and are now wanting to come to You, all because of the blessing

 that You have given us with our weekly family night! Jesus, praise, 

glory, and honor to Your Holy Name and Your Holy Spirit!!!   

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus uses every circumstance to take us to a new level of

 “understanding” the Truth of God. 

Jesus has just a couple of days left to Teach before He will be 

crucified as “The Lamb of God” and has just spent the last few 

days addressing the problem of “hypocrisy” in the nation of Israel. 

Jesus exposed the “source” and clearly identified the “fruit” of 

“hypocrisy” and then Jesus did not “pull any punches” as He 

announced that by “appearing” to worship God on the “outside” 

yet on the “inside” we are actually “rejecting” God and that we ourselves

 are guilty of “hypocrisy” which is the main problem with every generation! 

 Jesus made it clear that “rejecting God” was “self condemnation”

 and the penalty for “rejecting God” was “eternal separation

 from God” and “eternal separation from God” 

is the True Definition of “HELL!”  

(Be careful what you ask for - for you just may get exactly that!) 

Jesus never leaves one circumstance without tying it to the next

 circumstance and demonstrates that God has a PLAN and that 

nothing is happening or will happen “randomly” but everything is part 

of the PLAN of GOD!  Jesus has been spending His Last Week

 on earth in Jerusalem and so far Jesus has made 

His Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday and His first order of business

 as the Messiah upon entering Jerusalem was to “clean” the temple

 in Jerusalem. Jesus then spends the next couple of days addressing

 the problem of the nation Israel following the “doctrines and traditions 

of men” instead of following the “Commands of God”. 

Jesus summarized the main problem as “hypocrisy” among those in 

authority over the nation but the bigger problem was that the nation

 itself had embraced the “[defiled] doctrines of men” and as individuals

 they were themselves guilty of “hypocrisy” and were

 “condemning themselves”. Jesus made it clear that there was 

“no escape” from “self-condemnation” and 

the verdict (God’s predetermined and published “Consequence”) 

of being “Guilty” of the sin of “hypocrisy” will result in eternal 

separation from God and “condemnation of hell.” 

(Matthew 23:13-36) 

Now Jesus is using that context to Teach His disciples about what 

is going to happen to the nation and to the temple because of the 

collective  national sin of “hypocrisy” as we read, 

“Then Jesus went out and departed the temple…” (Matthew 24:1a) 

which was a “prophetic” gesture of the future of the nation of Israel.

 Jesus showed when He “went out and departed the temple”  

that the verdict of “Guilty” had been passed by God and the previous 

Words of Jesus now made more sense to His disciples for Jesus

 had just Taught them in His Parable Lessons:

 “The stone which the builders rejected 

has become the chief cornerstone…”

 and then because of the “rejection” of Jesus by those in “authority” 

Jesus pronounced, “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God

 will be taken from you…” (Matthew 21:42-43) 

Jesus “departing” from the temple foreshadows Israel’s future and is 

the beginning of Jesus giving details and prophecy about the temple 

which history tells us was completely destroyed 70 years later and 

the nation Israel was taken into captivity by the Babylonians. 

Jesus always uses His “Questions” to focus our attention on His 

next Lesson and so we must look at the present context of Jesus 

“departing” from the temple and His disciples call His attention to the

 beautiful buildings that “men” have built and in my mind’s eye I can see 

Jesus shaking His head in disappointment because His disciples had 

not noticed that Jesus had “departed” the temple! 

Instead of seeing how God felt about the temple being defiled on 

the “inside”, His disciples only saw the “outside beauty” of the buildings. 

Jesus had just Taught about “whitewashed tombs” being full of

 “dead men’s bones” and the disciples could not see that this

 was a “whitewashed” temple and was full of “dead men’s bones”! 

Jesus then turned to His disciples as they were admiring the 

“works of men’s hands” and at that point Jesus asked: 

“Do you not see all these things?” (Matthew 24:2a) 

and to make sure they focused on His Lesson, Jesus immediately said,

 “Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here

 upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Matthew 24:2b) 

If the disciples could not see the prophetic truth of Jesus as He

 “went out and departed from the temple” they surely could not miss

 the message Jesus gave them when He clearly drew a prophetic “Word”

 picture of the temple being completely destroyed and 

“not one stone shall be left here upon another…”?!?!? 

We should stop here at the start of a new Question

 Jesus is asking and ask ourselves, 

"What has Jesus been Teaching and showing us about the sin in our

 lives that we are missing because of the blindness caused by us 

rejecting the LIGHT and walking in the darkness of the world?” 

His disciples had been with Jesus all week listening to Him pronouncing a guilty 

verdict on the hypocritical rulers of Israel and the temple in Jerusalem 

and then when His disciples looked at the temple from the “outside”, 

they could not see that God was no longer there and had left the “inside”

 empty which is a “Word” picture of our lives and our nation without God! 

Pray that the Holy Spirit will open our spiritual eyes so we 

“[can] see all these things”  that Jesus is painting in our lives

 and what Jesus is trying to show us about the kingdom of God!?!?!?!