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Sunday Worship 1 May 2022 : “What will be the sign of Your coming?”

Text: Matthew 24:1-3; Jeremiah 7
1 May 2022

INTRODUCTION

1. Admiration of the Temple buildings

“Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.”   Matthew 24:1
a) It was supposed to be even more magnificent than Solomon’s Temple
b) Gold-plated roofs
c) White marble stones

2. King Herod added many buildings to the Temple Complex

a) The Disciples were greatly impressed
b) They wondered why the Lord was not impressed at all

THE FIRST TEMPLE BUILDING

1. Built by King Solomon   (2 Chronicles 1-5)

2. Dedication of the Temple   (2 Chronicles 7)

3. Accepted by the LORD on Condition

12 Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and [d]sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and [e]My eyes and [f]My heart will be there perpetually. 17 As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, 18 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’
19 “But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, 20 then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
21 “And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and this house?’ 22 Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calamity on them.’ ”   2 Chronicles 7:12-22
a) If the people forsake the LORD
b) The Temple, though sanctified, will be cast out of God’s sight
c) The Destruction of the Temple will become proverbial

THE FIRST TEMPLE DESTROYED

15 And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. 16 But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy.

17 Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand. 18 And all the articles from the house of God, great and small, the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his leaders, all these he took to Babylon. 19 Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. 20 And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil seventy years.   2 Chronicles 36:15-21

1. The LORD sent prophets to warn Judah

2. All messages/ messengers were rejected

3. King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple

THE SECOND TEMPLE

1. Built by Zerubbabel and Ezra after 70 years of Captivity   (Ezra 6-7)

2. Expanded and developed by King Herod (from 19 BC)

3. It was a magnificent temple physically

WARNING OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE

And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”   Matthew 24:2

1. The Lord Jesus was not impressed by the Temple buildings

2. He forewarned the Destruction of the Temple

THE QUESTIONS OF THE DISCIPLES

Now as He 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

1. Tell us, when will these things be?

2. And what will be the sign of Your coming?

3. And of the end of the age?

CONCLUSION

1. Lessons of History

a) The First Temple was destroyed
b) Because the nation had forsaken God
c) God is not impressed with physical edifices

2. The Temple in the days of the Lord Jesus

12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God 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. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”   Matthew 21:12-13
a) It was no longer a house of prayer
b) It had become a den of thieves

3. The questions of the Disciples

a) They were valid
b) They were relevant
c) They were important

4. The new series of Pulpit Messages

a) A brief study of Eschatology
b) A study of “The Last Things”
c) The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ