We now come to the Olivet discourse, where Jesus speaks specifically about the end times. Naturally this causes us lots of difficulties and disagreements about how to interpret what He says. One of the root causes of these problems is that we like to interpret things in linear time. Ie one event follows another, and we try and view this as Jesus telling us how one thing will happen after another in a complete sequential fashion. Doing this we inevitably end up in a muddle. It is better to view it as Jesus teaching about the event of the "end times". Ie He is telling us about various things that will happen that are associated with the end times. We should also remember that we have been in the "last days" for two thousand years now, so any attempt to get a nice neat "plot synopsis" of the last days is frankly silly. Also if this chapter does just apply to the very last days then it is irrelevant for the early disciples and for most of the church age since then. Conversely, there are those who seem to think it was completely fulfilled in AD66-70. This is an equally stupid notion. Many of the features of the last days did occur in AD66-70 with the destruction of the temple, but other things clearly did not. It would also mean that while it was relevant for the early church (which it certainly was), it is irrelevant for all time afterwards.
The first thing that Jesus addresses is the apparent permanency of things in the world. The temple looked marvellous and imposing. However, within about forty years it would be completely destroyed. We see many physical, social, financial and political edifices today, but none of them are permanent, no matter how powerful they may seem to be. Hitler's 1000 year Reich lasted 12 years, communism that seemed so threatening collapsed in the late eighties.
The only thing that is permanent is the word of God.
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