And Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way; and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. But he answered and said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat on the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying; Tell us, when shall these things be? (They had just talked about the temple) and what shall be the sign of thy coming (Parousia) and the end of the world (age)? Matthew 24:1–3.
They were asking about events that might be thousands of years apart, but to them, the whole picture was looming up, and so they were asking for details: “When is this all going to happen?” Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished. Verse 34. About 35 A.D. He was referring to certain things that were to happen: and by 70 A.D. the temple was destroyed—His prophecy that not one stone would be left standing upon another was fulfilled within that generation.
Some of the prophecies in Matthew 24 are like distant mountains. They loomed up big in the chapter, but a long period has since passed and we’ve not yet seen them totally fulfilled. It is important to realize that in this day we can sort them out much better. We can look back and say, “Yes, that word was closer to that generation, but now these things are closer to ours; we’re living in them today.”
The Lord was very careful to establish attitudes in people’s minds. If He had said it would be a couple of thousand years before anything would be done, the disciples would have thought, “We’ll take it easy. We have all the time in the world.”
But the word of prophecy given by the Lord was so worded that every generation lived with the possibility of the imminent return of the Lord. We not only live (as they did) with that possibility, but we are the generation in which the signs that pointed to His coming and to the end of the age have been fulfilled. From the beginning of this century, with each succeeding decade, we have found more and more rapid fulfillments of prophecy; signs and evidences of the Lord being right at hand.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only. Matthew 24:35–36. Christ Himself did not know the day nor the hour, though He knew certain things about it which He revealed in the prophecies. Why didn’t Jesus, the Son of God, the eternal, second Person of the triune Godhead, know about it? Because the Lord Jesus Christ had come, limiting Himself to all the capacities and knowledge of a man to die in our place. It wasn’t God meeting our need, it was the Son of man meeting our need.
Though He was God, yet He laid aside His attributes—His omnipotence, His great wisdom, all the things He knew. How could He do that if He was God? If He couldn’t He wouldn’t be God. God, Who knows everything and can do anything, can limit His knowledge. He can bury our sins in the sea of His forgetfulness. By His very character and integrity He cannot lie. There are things that God cannot do and does not know because He is a perfect God. He cannot lie to you. He is incapable of it.
God is incapable of remembering your sins when He blots them out to be remembered against you no more. I’ve never found anyone with true discernment, or the word of wisdom or word of knowledge, discover a sin by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, of which a person has repented. When the Lord blots it out, the Spirit of the Lord can’t find it. It’s really gone; it is under the blood of Jesus Christ. God knows how to forget. He knows how to limit Himself.
How did Jesus do all those miracles? Because God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit at the River Jordan. There wasn’t a thing that Jesus did in His earthly ministry that we cannot do also. He even prophesied, “Greater works than these shall ye do” (John 14:12). Don’t think, “Because He was God He could do it all.” He laid aside His ability as God to do it, and in Acts 10:38 Peter made it clear that because God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, He was able to do signs and wonders.
Imagine God Himself becoming anointed by the Holy Spirit because He had temporarily accepted limitations in order to cope with every situation of man completely, as a man, with no resources available to Him, except what the Heavenly Father bestowed upon Him. That ought to encourage us.
As John says, … as he is even so are we in this world. I John 4:17. We are like Him: He was without sin, and so are we because He saved us by His grace. Because we have opened up to the precious blood of Jesus Christ, we have the same standing before the Father in the righteousness of God that He had.
Watch therefore: For ye know not on what day your Lord cometh. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. Therefore, be ye also ready; for in an hour that ye think not, the Son of man cometh. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath set over his household, to give them their food in due season? Matthew 24:42–45.
As the days of the Parousia are coming, there will be a blessing upon the people who are giving God’s people food in due season. That is exactly what the Lord is giving to us: the word that’s coming is alive and fresh. It’s a living word, something God is bringing forth for the hour, not Gibeonite bread. And this is what the Lord is telling us we must do, in this wonderful twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew dealing with the end time events.
Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that he will set him over all that he hath. Verses 46, 47. We shall come into the authority of the Kingdom as we are faithful with the living word that we have for the hour, the meat in due season. Our faithfulness in publishing the word God has given us is the prelude to the great authority of the Kingdom that will be ours.
But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord tarrieth; and shall begin to beat his fellow-servants, and shall eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites: (that’s where he’s put—with the hypocrites) there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Verses 48–51.
There’s only one message that God can bring to us out of any passage we read concerning the return of the Lord. Similar messages are in Mark 13 and Luke 12. For your own edification, it would be well to read them. It speaks of being ready and alert for the return of the Lord. How you are living at the time of His return, and how faithfully you’re walking in what God has given you is the entire key of what will happen beyond.
There can be no greater thing for us to do than to be occupying until He comes—pressing in. I would still start new churches if I knew the Lord was going to come the next day, because it’s our faithfulness to the word, in reaching out that will determine our positioning in the Kingdom as it unfolds on the earth. There’s no substitute for audacious faithfulness that reaches out and trusts God to be faithful. Because we trust Him to be faithful, we’re faithful to advance, knowing He will not disappoint us—for there is no faithfulness but the Lord’s and that which He works within us.