OCTOBER 06 THE JESUS QUESTIONS
JQ#30
“Do you not see all these things?” (Matthew 24:02)
LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer
JESUS, Lord and Savior, my Redeemer, I bow before You today
again seeking Your Mercy and Grace for my soul is calling out
Praise to Your Holy Name! You Lord, You alone are the Way,
You alone died on Calvary’s cruel cross for my iniquities,
You alone have been given the Authority by the Father to Forgive sin!
You are the Creator of all things and I pray that the Father God
restore unto You Your Glory as it was before the creation existed.
Lord, I place my soul and my physical being in subjection to Your Will
and Your Way. Grant it Lord that the remainder of my eternity
be of good and faithful service to You alone!
AMEN
THE JESUS QUESTIONS
Jesus and His disciples are leaving Jerusalem much like they had done
after Jesus had first entered the city on Palm Sunday and Jesus had
gone to the temple and “drove out all those who bought and sold
in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers
and the seats of those who sold doves.”
(Matthew 21:12)
Jesus returned the temple to a “house of prayer” and
“the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple,
and [Jesus] healed them.”
(Matthew 21:14) .
Here the confrontations with the “chief priests and scribes” surfaced again
and Jesus had to address the fact that the religious rulers over Israel
were the “source” of the cancer of “hypocrisy” that had crippled and
blinded the entire nation Israel which Jesus had come on a mission to heal!
After the confrontation with the chief priests and scribes on Palm Sunday,
Jesus and His disciples left the city through the Eastern Gate going
to the Mount of Olives and Bethany. Jesus has completed addressing
the problem and pronounced judgement on those that had chosen
to follow the “defiled doctrines and traditions of men” instead of following
God and His Commands and He and His disciples are again going
to leave the city. It is of significance that His disciples stopped and
admired the temple and commented on the “buildings of the temple”
(Matthew 24:1)
before leaving the city this time and Jesus asked
JQ#30 “Do you not see all these things?”
Matthew 24:2)
Then Jesus immediately started a series of prophetic statements
beginning with the total destruction of the temple that His disciples
were admiring on their way out of Jerusalem.
Their departure signifies
the completion of the “Work”
Jesus had come to Jerusalem to accomplish —
Jesus had started this Jerusalem mission days earlier
“when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage,
at the Mount of Olives…” and Jesus had sent two of His disciples
“into the village” to retrieve “a donkey tied, and a colt with her…”
which Jesus then used to make His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.
(Matthew 21:1-12)
Now the circle is completed as Jesus has cleansed the temple
both “physically” and “spiritually” and now they are departing Jerusalem
after Jesus the Son has completed the task given Him by God the Father.
Jesus again departs out the Eastern Gate and goes a second time
to the Mount of Olives where Jesus gives His disciples a series
of prophetic statements including the prophet Daniel’s seventieth week
of years of the end times, including the Abomination of Desolation
and the Great Tribulation and ends with the Return of Jesus the KING
to earth at the end of the Great Tribulation. This series of Prophecies
by Jesus given on the Mount of Olives is commonly referred to as the
Olivet Discourse
and started with a couple of questions from the disciples who
were probably still contemplating what Jesus had just told them
about the total destruction of the “temple” and its grand “buildings”
as they were leaving the city!
“Now as [Jesus] 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 end of the age?’”
(Matthew 24:3)
So Jesus had peaked His disciples interest when He asked,
“Do you not see all these things?”
(Matthew 24:2)
and had announced the total destruction of the temple in Jerusalem
which for the Jews would be symbolic to the end of their national identity
because the nation of Israel was built around God’s Temple in Jerusalem
in the City of David. This section of Jesus’ Teaching is very, very important
so let us start by “understanding” that Jesus has asked the question
“Do you not see…” to focus our attention on what He is about to Teach
us regarding
“…all these things <<the past, the present, and the future>>”!!!
So this is a good time
to get in a quite place with the Holy Spirit
and carefully read Matthew 24:1-31
and
LISTEN TO HIM!!!
