MATTHEW 24:15-28, 32-35
NEAR THE END OF World War II downtown Warsaw was almost completely leveled. According to one witness, the only skeletal structure remaining on the main street was the Polish headquarters of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The words engraved upon the only wall standing, which were clearly legible from the street, were the words, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
Again we return to that thorny text we call the Olivet Discourse. Yet it is a text, however thorny, that is quite smooth and straight (clear) on the matters that should matter most to us. For example, it is clear on Jesus’ identity. Jesus is a true prophet (cp. Deuteronomy 18:15). The text we will explore has come true. But of course Jesus is so much more than a prophet. He is the Son of David, the Son of Man, and the Son of God. He who now reigns in Heaven, having been granted “all authority in heaven and on earth” (28:18). And as such we take notice of how he talks.
He speaks with divine authority, language like “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (v. 34) and “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (v. 35). Those are not just bold claims; they are claims that can be tested by history. Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple, and it happened. He predicted that his words would stick around longer than all created matter (the heavens and the earth), and so far so good. He has been right about his linguistic longevity.
The Olivet Discourse is clear on Jesus’ identity. Furthermore, it is clear on the importance of the imperatives. Believers in all times and places are to “stay awake” (v. 42), “not be alarmed” (v. 6), not be led “astray” (v. 4), and so on.
In this tract we will keep, as we always should, an eye on the person of Jesus (he is not just some moral teacher or accurate prophet), but our main focus will be on the truth of what he said would happen (and did happen) to Jerusalem.
In the last tract I explained that there are three different schools of thought on how to read this Discourse and that I enlisted in the already / not yet school, if you will. That is, I think some of Matthew 24 describes the events before and/or during the destruction of the temple in AD 70, some describes the second coming of Christ, and some describes what will transpire from the time of Christ’s resurrection until his return. Other than verses 27, 28, for this tract we will look only at the past.
I think what Jesus said in verses 15-28 and 32-35 has already happened in history. My defense for my view will come out clearly (and convincingly, I hope) as I answer three key questions. First, to whom is Jesus talking? Second, what is going to happen? Third, what are they (Jesus’ first disciples) to do?
To Whom Is Jesus Talking?
The answer to the first question should be obvious. To whom is Jesus talking? He is talking to those who asked him the question in verse 3. He is talking to his first disciples and the Believers of their generation. We know this is the case for a number of reasons. Let me give you three.
First, there is the use of the pronoun “you.” Throughout this passage that pronoun quite naturally refers to the disciples. For example, when Jesus says, at the beginning of verse 15, “when you see the abomination of desolation,” he means when the first disciples see that event. The “you” is our first clue that Jesus is not talking to you or me but to them.
Besides that prominent pronoun, second, we also find specific details that make best sense in light of a specific first-century audience. For example, note the specific geography and topography mentioned at the end of verse 16. It reads, “let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” What possible meaning could that verse have to anyone who does not live in that region of the world? We can allegorize “Judea” (and also “flee” and “mountains” for that matter), but that only leaves us with 100,000 possibilities and perhaps 100,000 exegetical absurdities. It is most natural and reasonable to believe that Jesus is talking about some event that would not affect the whole world but only those who live in and around Jerusalem, only those who can flee to mountains. (I assure you, he is not talking to anyone who lives in Plainfield, Illinois or Wichita, Kansas.)
Third, look at what is specifically commanded in verses 17-20. Jesus says:
Let the one who is on the housetop [the flat housetop, common in Judea] not go down to take what is in his house, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.
Now think for a minute. Who would be worried about retrieving their necessities or valuables if it was the end of the world? You wouldn’t need your gold watch or your wool mittens if the sun was to darken and the stars were to fall from the sky (v. 29), would you? And if this was the last day—the end of the world as we know it and as they know it—what difference would it make if this event happened in the winter or not or whether one was pregnant or not? And why would Jesus express sympathy for those attempting to flee that region? The second coming, as I read verse 31 and the book of Revelation, will be a good thing for the followers of Christ. All our labor pains—and those of these pregnant women—will be over. There will be no need to run if Jesus and his obvious and somehow universal presence is coming to town.
What Is Going to Happen?
Our second question is: What is going to happen? Verse 15 tells us that they were to expect “the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place.”
The book of Daniel, as Jesus points out, forms much of the background of this phrase. That is why Matthew says, “let the reader understand.” In other words, let the reader grasp that what Daniel said would happen is soon to happen.
During Israel’s captivity Daniel prophesied that after the exile there would be seventy “weeks” (symbolic of groups of seven years), and then an “anointed one” (Daniel 9:25, presumably Christ) would be “cut off” (Daniel 9:26, presumably meaning his death on the cross). In the middle (not the end) of the last “week,” an “abomination” would cause the temple to be deserted and the regular sacrifices to cease. In my mind it makes best sense to understand this “abomination of desolation” as referring to idolatrous Rome’s absolute destruction of the temple in AD 70. I say idolatrous not only because the Romans worshipped the Emperor, but because their army carried images of such worship into the temple with them. In victory they placed their blasphemous banners upon holy ground and made sacrifices to their gods. In this way it was an “appalling sacrilege” (24:15, amplified), something both ordained by but also detestable to God.
I don't want to spend much time on this “abomination” or “sacrilege,” for it is tricky business, and we have other important matters I want us to consider. I will, however, give briefly my top two reasons for my position that “the abomination of desolation” equals Rome’s leveling of the temple.
First, this view fits well with the immediate context. Before Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple, he first speaks of its “house” (i.e., temple) as being “desolate” (23:38). It’s the same Greek root word as used in 24:15. Remember also in Matthew’s Gospel how Jesus used the barren or desolate fig tree to symbolize the judgment that would come upon Israel (21:19). And then, of course, we shouldn’t forget that Jesus made a specific prediction regarding the temple. In 24:2 he said that that every stone from that temple would be “thrown down.” And in verse 3 the disciples, with their questions, wanted to know when the temple would be destroyed. In verse 15 Jesus answers them, saying in essence, “It will be destroyed when you see these things happening” (cp. v. 34).
Second, and perhaps even more significant, if you look at Luke’s Gospel he twice clarifies the ambiguity. In Luke 19:42-44, before Jesus cleanses the temple and after he weeps over Jerusalem he says:
Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.
Then in 21:20 Luke writes of Matthew’s “abomination of desolation” in this manner: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its [i.e., Jerusalem’s] desolation has come near.” Here Jesus is not talking about spiritual armies any more than he is talking about spiritual rooftops. He is referring to the Roman “armies” who were responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem thirty-seven(?) years after Jesus spoke verses 2, 15, and 34.
Here is the history. In order to crush the Jewish Revolt in AD 66 the Roman General Titus worked his way south until he seized and conquered Jerusalem on the ninth of the month of Av (August 29) in AD 70. At first the temple was ordered to be preserved. But when it was later gutted by a fire set by one of the soldiers, the order came from Caesar to raze “the whole city and the temple... to the ground.” What happened next was quite remarkable. “Once the temple burned... the soldiers were so eager to retrieve the gold which melted and had (lowed into the cracks between the stones that they overturned the huge stones of the burned-out building to retrieve the gold.” Therefore, precisely as Jesus had predicted, when they were finished, not one stone was left standing upon another.
Forty years after this event, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote, “All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely leveled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited.” He also claimed that when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and devastated Judea, 97,000 Jews were enslaved, and another 1.1 million died by slaughter and starvation.
Matthew 24:21 summarizes well the magnitude of this horrific event: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be." While this verse, along with verse 15, might have a double fulfillment—a future, final-days defilement related to the Antichrist (“the man of lawlessness,” 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4) and the beast (Revelation 14:9), who claim to be God and demand worship from the Church—let’s not forget that the terrors that came upon Jerusalem in AD 70 were the worst that city has ever experienced. They were greater than the destruction of the temple in 583 BC and greater than the desolation of it in 163 BC at the hands of Antiochus Epiphanes—when he erected a pagan statue in the Holy of Holies. The Romans destroyed the Holy of Holies and every holy building with it! And while today Jerusalem does experience much turmoil, no event we read of in the newspapers or watch on television comes close to reporting on the city’s total destruction. What happened in AD 70 was truly “Israel’s darkest hour,” “a time of tribulation unsurpassed in Israel’s history.”
What Are They to Do?
In verse 15 Jesus tells the first disciples what will happen: the temple will be destroyed. But how are they to respond? That’s our third question. What are they to do during this time of great tribulation?
Jesus gives them three commands. Like the warning given to Lot before the fire dropped upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:17), they are first told to “flee to the mountains” (24:16) and to do it quickly (vv. 17, 18). As Blomberg summarizes: “They must interrupt whatever they are doing— whether relaxing, as customary on the flat rooftops of their homes, or working, as typically in the fields—and flee with the utmost of haste.”
This command to flee may seem out of place. Why did Jesus tell them in verses 9, 10 to expect persecution and then in verses 16-18 seemingly to escape from it? The answer is that here he is not telling them to flee suffering for the sake of the gospel. He is simply telling them to flee to avoid being slaughtered in a God-ordained military campaign (“The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city” [22:7]). They are to die for the gospel (if it comes to that), but not for the temple. So while at various times in its history Israel fled into the temple as a fortress of refuge, here Jesus counsels true Israel to fly away from it. This time the temple will offer no divine protection. Like a dead and withered fig tree, it is about to be pulled from the ground and burned.
The first command is to flee. Let me quickly run through the next two. Second, they are told to “pray” for the timing of this “abomination” (vv. 20, 15). With compassion for the least mobile among them (pregnant women and nursing mothers), they are told to pray specifically that it may not happen during a season or on a day when travel would be difficult—“in winter or on a Sabbath” (v. 20).
Third, they are commanded three different times not to be duped by false or fanatical teachers, who will come out of the woodwork, or better metaphorically-speaking, will arise from the ashes (vv. 23, 24). Because of the great troubles of those days Jesus warns them that they will be susceptible to impostors. They will so desire Christ’s return and final vindication that they will be tempted to embrace whoever comes along with great signs and wonders, claiming to be just that. At that time, however, the “elect” (true believers) are not to “believe” such liars (vv. 22, 23). They are not to be led astray. The Son of Man is not returning at that time and in that way. When Jesus returns (don’t worry about missing it) it will be as obvious as lightning flashing across a dark sky or a group of vultures gathering around a corpse (vv. 27, 28). Jesus uses such lovely illustrations! As Kim Riddlebarger states, “His coming will not be an isolated, secret, or local event but will be witnessed by the entire world. Every eye will see him.”
What Are We to Do with This Fulfilled Prophecy?
That is what Jesus said to them. What then does he say to us? What are we to do with this fulfilled prophecy ? I’ve walked us through those verses on the past. I next want to use our text’s eight imperatives to be our applications for the present: “flee” (v. 16), do “not go down” (v. 17), do “not turn back” (v. 18), “pray” (v. 20), “do not believe” (vv. 23, 26b), “do not go out” (v. 26a), and “learn” (v. 32). These eight can be grouped together into three groups—obedience, prayer, and discernment.
Obedience
First we have obedience. Under this group are all the imperatives, but here we will focus just on the admonishment to “flee” (v. 16) and two of the “you shall not” commandments—do “not go down” (v. 17) and do “not turn back” (v. 18). Those three imperatives focus on the disciples taking Jesus at his word—believing that what he said would happen will happen, and when it does happen to do precisely what he said.
You might think it would have been easy for the first Believers in Judea, when they saw the mighty Roman army march into town, to say (a) “Oh, Jesus was right. Here they are!” and (b) “Let’s get to the mountains ASAP.” But that is to underestimate the lure of Jewish nationalism and Christian triumphalism. Please understand that Jesus is commanding them to leave their city, their place of worship, and their people when the Gentile enemy of God’s holy city, temple, and people come to town. That’s not an easy command to keep.
Do you remember what Peter did when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus? He took out his sword and fought (26:51; cp. John 18:10). Peter and James and John and all those earliest Believers would be tempted when they saw Rome prance into town to pull out their swords and fight. They would be tempted to join the newest “resistance movement” and/or “to sign up to fight for a new Messiah.” Jesus tells them to fight off such temptations and natural tendencies and to “get out and run,” not stay and fight. And thankfully we know from the historian Eusebius that the Ecclesia at Jerusalem did leave the city, relocating to the hill country, the same place where the Jews hid during the Maccabean revolt. They did obey Jesus’ commands and were saved! Soon after the desolation, the Romans left the region. The days had been “cut short,” and “the elect” were saved or preserved (v. 22). You see, they were saved from their sins when Jesus died and rose again. But they were saved from death—being unnecessarily slaughtered—when they heeded Jesus’ seemingly odd but certainly accurate words.
How about you? Do you trust Jesus’ word? Do you think he knows what he’s talking about? Do you believe that he has your best interest in mind?
These first disciples took Jesus at his word, and we should follow their example—in fact we have many more reasons to do so. Jesus’ prophecy about his death and resurrection has come true. Jesus' prophecy about the destruction of the temple has come true. If Jesus said about 2,000 years ago that his words would “not pass away” (v. 35) and thus far he has been right, we have good reason to believe that what he said about love, divorce, adultery, prayer, fasting, vows, almsgiving, good works, lust, anger, anxiety, poverty of spirit, feeding the poor, materialism, idolatry, undue and ungrounded and unexamined criticism, humility, peace, pride, and the end of the world is also right. Right?
I wonder, in what areas of life are you most tempted not to take Jesus’ word as true? Is it in the area of finances? Does money, “a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10a), have its greedy claws in you? “O man of God, flee these things” (1 Timothy 6:11). Be content with what God gives—food and clothing (1 Timothy 6:6, 8). Look at and learn from the lilies. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness—“Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:11b)—and all that you need will be added unto you (see 6:28, 29, 33).
I wonder, in what areas of life are you most tempted not to take Jesus’ word as true? Is it in the area of idolatry? I don’t mean the idols of Athens or the idols that the Romans brought into the temple. I mean all those little, medium, and large idols that these idol-making machines of ours (our brains) make on a daily basis. Do you make work an idol? Success? Grades? Food? Drink? Television? Computer games? Sports? Financial security? Beauty? Happiness? Reputation? Politics? Family? Marriage? Children? (Bad things and good things can be idols.) “Flee from idolatry,” Paul exhorts Believers in 1 Corinthians 10:14. Jesus is to be first, and there are to be no other gods besides him.
I wonder, in what areas of life are you most tempted not to take Jesus’ word as true? Is it in the area of sexuality? You know that Jesus says not to think this and not to do that. But you don’t trust him, or you are tempted to not trust him. You know that the Word says to “flee youthful passions” (2 Timothy 2:22) and to “flee from sexually immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18), but the bed of the adulteress is too inviting, and the click of the computer button too easy and enticing, and the touch of the human hand seems so more real than the touch of God.
Do you know who the unhappiest person in the world is? I say it is the Believer who is living in disobedience to the word of Christ. Jesus saves, and Jesus wants to save you, Believer, from the dreadful, dangerous, potentially damning consequences of your sins.
In John 14:21a Jesus said, “Whoever has [i.e., knows] my commandments and keeps [i.e., obeys] them, he it is who loves me.” Do you love Jesus? There is an easy litmus test. You know and keep his words (cp. John 14:24a). You trust and do what he says because you know that he knows what he is talking about. The Bible calls it obedience.
Prayer
First, we are to obey. Second, we are to pray. This imperative comes from verse 20 where Jesus tells that generation to “pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.”
Until studying for this tract, I have always pooh-poohed the travel-safety prayer. “Dear Lord, give us traveling mercies as we take a two-day drive down to Disney World.” Part of the prayer that rubs me the wrong way is inconsistency: if we are going to pray when we take the 1,000-mile trek to visit Mickey, why don’t we pray for the one-mile excursion to the grocery store? The other part of the prayer that rubs me the wrong way (or did rub me the wrong way) is the prayer for safety. Who says the Believers life is safe? Was it safe for Peter and Paul? Was it safe for Polycarp and Ignatius? Was it safe for Hus and Tyndale? Was it safe for Cranmer and Latimer?
But as I prepared this chapter, with verse 20 staring me in the eyes, I repented of my completely uncharitable thoughts toward the travel-safety prayer and other safety prayers like it. It’s okay to pray, as our Lord taught us, “Deliver us from evil” (6:13)—from the evils of fallen people (wicked rulers, unfair judges, false teachers) and from the evils of this fallen world (famines, earthquakes, wars, and even car wrecks).
There is one other truth I have learned about this prayer-imperative that I think we can naturally and readily apply to ourselves. It has to do with the nature of prayer. If there is one thing that is clear in the Olivet Discourse, it is that God is sovereign over history. History is going somewhere, and he knows where it is going. So in light of that truth, it is not strange to read imperatives to us about readiness for the unexpected. What is strange (at least it was to me upon first reading) is that prophetically-accurate Jesus tells his follows to pray to an absolutely sovereign God.
We might think that if God has determined that Jerusalem will fall on a winter Sabbath; then God has determined it. Why would we bother him with our plea for safe travel? But that’s not how God works. That’s not how prayer works. Prayer is mysterious, as mysterious as the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. We know that God is sovereign; we know that God hears our prayers. And we know that our prayers, in some way, affect God. Think about the prayers of Abraham or Moses. Think about the personal interaction they had with the Almighty. Prayer works; otherwise, Jesus wouldn’t have commanded his followers here or elsewhere to pray. John Bengel summaries well the teaching and history of verse 20: “Prayer helps; they prayed, and flight did not take place in winter.” It was August. Don’t underestimate the power of our prayer to the sovereign God.
Discernment
Our final application to the eight imperatives involves discernment. The Olivet Discourse is a discourse on discernment—discerning what are signs and what are not signs, discerning what time it is and what time it is not, discerning which teacher is true and which is false. Here in verses 15-28 and 32-35, we find one imperative—“learn” (v. 32)—that is about discerning the times and another two imperatives—“do not believe” (vv. 23, 26b) and “do not go out” (v. 26a)—that are about discerning whose voice to heed.
Look with me now at verses 32-34. After Jesus has just spoken to all generations about how obvious his return would be—as obvious as “a loud trumpet call” (v. 31)—he says to that first generation:
From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
The lesson they are to learn is the same lesson we are to learn, and that lesson is: once Jerusalem has been seized and sacked, know that Jesus Christ can return at any time. In other words, the fall of the temple was the last sign before the final judgment.
Related to that lesson is the nearness of Christ’s return. How near is the “near” of verse 33 or how immediate is the “immediately” of verse 29? If my reading is right (that’s not a big if or a small if; it’s a medium if), then “near” does not mean the year AD 71 or 1000 or 2000 or 2014. It does mean perhaps the day you are reading this. It means “soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.” How soon? Soon and/or very soon. (More on that theme in the next tract.)
Discernment involves learning. It also involves listening—listening to Jesus’ word and not listening to the fanatics and/or the false teachers. In troubling times and in times of great tribulation, Believers are most susceptible to following the wrong crowd, and the wrong crowd is usually in, around, or at one time from the Ecclesia.
One night over twenty years ago (when I had just become a new Believer), I was watching religious television. After the teacher had drawn me in through naming my particular trouble (I now realized he named quite a few (troubles, the ones common to man), he asked if anyone wanted a miracle. I did! He first said to touch the screen as he prayed. I did. He next said to send a check to support his God-anointed faith-healing ministry. I didn’t. But I would have if I wasn’t dead broke.
I’m not alone in my past gullibility and present susceptibility. There is something about the fame, following, and even true miracles of these false teachers that can powerfully take our eyes and ears off Christ. There is something convincing about the charismatic leader who says, “If you want to know where and when to find Jesus, come on this special date to this secret location to get this exclusive information.”
We live in an age of religious charlatans and skeptics. On one hand, or better in one ear, we have the charlatans—those who for the sake of money, fame, and admiration refuse to preach Christ and him crucified and refuse to preach the necessity of cross-bearing. In the other ear we have the skeptics—those who for the sake of money, fame, and admiration deny Jesus’, the forgiving power of his death, and his resurrection. They deny everything (or nearly everything) about which Matthew is concerned. It is not just those false teachers who claim to know all the times, places, and people related to the end of the world that we are to watch out for, but it is also these charlatans, some of whom write the best-selling “Christian” books, and those skeptics, some of whom give very serious and scholarly interviews on the History Channel. It is imperative that we “do not believe” them (vv. 23, 26b) and that we “do not go out” (v. 26a) and follow them. You see, unbelief is sometimes necessary for believers, and disobedience is sometimes our duty.
So what are we to do with this fulfilled prophecy? We are to learn lessons about discernment, prayer, and obedience, as well as lessons about the person and power and everlasting authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God's Great Ordinance
I recently began reading through John Owen’s classic Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (first published in 1656). This book is a gold mine of practical Puritan theology at its best. There are nuggets like “Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world,” and “be killing sin or it will be killing you,” and “the life, vigour, and comfort of our spiritual life depend much on our mortification of sin,” and “there is no death of sin without the death of Christ,” and “Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou will die a conquerer; yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet.” Good stuff!
In the ninth chapter, Owen writes:
Sometimes in reading the word God makes a man stay on something that cuts him to the heart, and shakes him as to his present condition. More frequently in the hearing of the word preached, his great ordinance for conviction, conversion, and edification, doth he meet with men. God often hews men by the sword of his word in that ordinance, strikes directly on their bosom-beloved lust, startles the sinner, makes him engage unto the mortification and relinquishment of the evil of his heart.
I’m not sure how or if God has used the preaching of his Word in this tract to convict or challenge you, or perhaps encourage or edify or enlighten you, but I would hope that this history lesson has taught you many practical lessons—lessons about discernment, prayer, and obedience, and lessons about the person and power and everlasting authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)