The questions answered here are the questions “Where is Yeshua going?” and “Where are we going?” We are living in the time of “now and the not yet.” The “now and not yet” of Moses day was the Exodus. The first generation experienced the “not yet” while the second generation experienced the “now.” Their rest is the same as it is today. We need to know where our Provider is. He is with us but He is taking us somewhere else, too.
What did Yeshua mean by, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places … I go to prepare a place for you” (Jn. 14:2, 4)? It’s about what God promises to do in transforming us along with the world at some later time and about what God promises to do in transforming us now.
At the beginning of His great final message and prayer with His 12 closest students (John 13-17; Luke 22:7-38), Yeshua was not calling them to be servants but friends. Servants and masters do not love each other but friends do. Our lives are more temporary than we think. Our lives can be very short or very long. We can make our lives long in the short time we have when we put our lives in God’s hands. God is taking us over the horizon, beyond what we can see. We have to have faith to walk with God when we can’t see where he is taking us.
Continuing our study of Yeshua’s “apocalyptic discourse” in Luke 21, Matthew 24-25 and Mark 13, this time we focus on the phrase “sign of the Son of Man.”
The Exodus from Egypt came before God gave the Law at Sinai. Israel was given freedom from slavery before they learned His law.
We don’t want the Day of the LORD to arrive because of its sadly necessary turmoil, yet we hope for it. The main occupants of the heavens — sun, moon and stars — are going to appear dim and dark. It’s almost the reverse of Genesis 1. This is not going to be a good time. Yet, it’s dread and hope, wrapped in one.
One of the ways we can look at the mysterious apocalyptic phrase “abomination of desolation” is to see it as a “Tale of Three Cities” — Babylon, Tyre and Ninevah — and how all three cities are really symbolic of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) herself. The carnage of the “abomination of desolation” will not come on Babylon, Tyre, Ninevah or any of our great cities of modern times like London, New York or Tokyo. From God’s prophets, we understand that it was and will be the people of Yerushalayim who will have a front row seat, and it will be for the same reasons for the previous desolations.
George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We are blessed to read these repeated warning of the spiritual condition of people God calls before an “abomination of desolation” — and internalize the lessons.
Yeshua repeated warned His disciples to “be ready” for the Day of the Lord. Take note that Yeshua said, “When you see the abomination of desolation” and refers His listeners to the book of Daniel. Yeshua is warning us that the “abomination of desolation” was not a one-time event.
The main reason the Temple was desecrated and destroyed was due to syncretism — blending of belief systems. The reason God destroys the Temple is not because each were and will be flawed but the hearts of the people were flawed. Let’s learn from history and not repeat it.