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Signs of the Second Coming of Christ
This chapter is based on Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21:5-38.
Christ’s words to the priests and rulers, “See! Your house is left
to you desolate” (
Matthew 23:38
), had struck terror in their hearts.
The question kept rising in their minds about what these words might
mean. Could it be that the magnificent temple, the nation’s glory,
was soon to be a heap of ruins?
The disciples also shared this sense of approaching evil. As
they walked out of the temple with Jesus, they called His attention
to its strength and beauty. The stones of the temple were of the
purest marble, some of almost incredible size. A portion of the wall
had withstood the siege by Nebuchadnezzar’s army. In its perfect
masonry it appeared like one solid stone dug whole from the quarry.
The view Christ saw was indeed beautiful, but He said with
sadness, “I see it all. You point to these walls as apparently inde-
structible, but listen: The day will come when ‘not one stone shall
be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’”
When He was alone, Peter, John, James, and Andrew came to
Him. “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign
of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” Jesus did not answer by
speaking separately of the destruction of Jerusalem and the great day
of His coming. He mingled the description of these two events. If He
had opened to His disciples the future events as He saw them, they
would have been unable to endure the sight. In mercy, He blended
the description of the two great crises, leaving the disciples to study
out the meaning for themselves. When He referred to the destruction
of Jerusalem, His prophetic words reached beyond that event to that
day when the Lord will come to punish the world for their iniquity.
Jesus gave this entire discourse not just for the disciples but for those
who would live in the last scenes of this earth’s history.
Christ said, “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many
will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive
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