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Chapter 69—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, “Behold, your house is
left unto you desolate” (
Matthew 23:38
), had struck terror to their
hearts. The question kept rising in their minds as to the import of
these words. Could it be that the magnificent temple, the nation’s
glory, was soon to be a heap of ruins?
The foreboding of evil was shared by the disciples. As they
passed with Him out of the temple, they called His attention to its
strength and beauty. The stones of the temple were of the purest
marble, some of almost fabulous size. A portion of the wall had
withstood the siege by Nebucadnezzar’s army. In its perfect masonry
it appeared like one solid stone dug entire from the quarry.
The view before Christ was indeed beautiful, but He said with
sadness, I see it all. You point to these walls as apparently indestruc-
tible; but listen: The day will come when “there shall not be left one
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
When He was alone, Peter, John, James, and Andrew came to
Him. “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the
sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus did not
answer by taking up separately the destruction of Jerusalem and the
great day of His coming. He mingled the description of these two
events. Had He opened to His disciples future events as He beheld
them, they would have been unable to endure the sight. In mercy He
blended the description of the two great crises, leaving the disciples
[422]
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 shall rise out of His place to punish
the world for their iniquity. This entire discourse was given, not for
the disciples only, but for those who should live in the last scenes of
this earth’s history.
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