The Last Days

Day 10

The Olivet Discourse. On Tuesday of the Holy Week Jesus sat upon the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and gave His disciples a prophetic teaching pertaining to the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, the events of the last days and the promise of His return. Some of the events Jesus prophesied have already happened long ago. The siege of Jerusalem and the desecration and destruction of the Temple occurred in A.D. 70. Other events are yet to happen…possibly soon.

But the purpose of Jesus’ discourse upon Olivet was not to fuel endless speculation about dates, but to give us the blessed hope of His glorious return and inspire us to live in a state of readiness. The four parables that Jesus gave immediately following the Olivet Discourse (the Servant, the Virgins, the Talents, the Sheep and Goats) are all about being ready for the coming of the Lord. The important thing is not to get it right — the minutia of eschatological speculation — the important thing is to get us right. So I’m not sure that the Bible prophecy expert who’s been married four times really gets it.

But we do live in a time pregnant with anticipation, there’s no denying that. People simply have a feeling that big things are on the horizon. It’s part of the mood of our age. This global mood oscillates between hopeful expectation and dark foreboding, but nearly everyone is expecting big things to happen.

Big things are afoot. Jesus is on the move. And the coming of the Lord is the great hope of the church…and humanity. If it weren’t for the hope I have of Jesus returning to reign I would be an incorrigible pessimist.

PAROUSIA . It’s a Greek word meaning coming or presence used throughout the New Testament to refer to the event of Jesus’ return. The blessed hope is not we’re going, but, Jesus is coming! The parousia is the blessed hope. Parousia is used 16 times in the New Testament to refer to the coming of the Lord. It’s used by Jesus, Paul, James, Peter and John. It’s used for the first time here in Matthew 24.

Jesus is coming.

Come Lord Jesus.

Amen.