"Destroyed!?"
"No stone left upon another?!"
"But, Jesus, this is a very grand and magnificent Temple we have here!"
He said this about 40 years before it happened. It happened in AD70. Roman Emperor Titus razed not only the Temple but Jerusalem as well. This, just as Jesus had said it would.
There had been another of their Temples that had been similarly destroyed. Remember the grandness of Solomon's Temple? Not even one sound of a tool was heard upon another in its construction! How amazing is that! Gold glinted everywhere. So King Solomon had a solemn celebration dedicating the Temple to God. He had a most moving prayer (1 Kings 8:22-61).
Yet all that splendor ended in an inglorious heap of rubble. The children of Israel had been warned again and again to follow God's commands, which if you recall, they had solemnly sworn to follow. Prophets' words of reprisals if they did not turn from their wicked ways landed on willfully deaf ears. The Babylonians came, destroyed, and swept most of the inhabitants away to Babylon.
That's where Daniel got thrown into a lion's den for praying to the one true God. That's also where Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego got tied and tossed into the fiery furnace for not bowing down to the mammoth idol replica of the king. These were those who were among the few righteous who did fear God and did what was right in His eyes.
Sometimes the deeds of others encompass those who haven't joined in the wrong. The consequences of the wrong doers wrong doings affect others; case in point, Daniel and his three friends. They got swooped up and carried off to Babylon right along with all the heedless ones. Unfair, yet God's purposes are past finding out.
God's presence was held in contempt. The catalyst was activated, and the destruction of Solomon's Temple was complete.
Seventy years of extended punishment had elapsed, and according to the prophecy, the then reigning king of Babylon allowed the Israelite Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Enter Ezra the "Engineer"-in-charge who oversaw the project.
The dedication service for this temple was somber for some who recalled the grandeur of Solomon's Temple dedication. However, those who had been born since, in captivity, and had returned and with holy-hush awe, praised God for this new Temple, the presence of God and the privilege to worship Him in the fullness of their Judaism as prescribed by God, through Moses, to His chosen people.
This second Temple, a more modest structure, was refurbished years later, during Herod the Great's reign, to almost the first Temple's resplendence. This was what the disciples were so wonderstruck about. Apparently, according to wikipedia, this modest-morphed-to-magnificent Temple lasted about 585 years.
Sad to say, this Temple was admired more than the One Whom the people were supposed to be worshiping therein. They desecrated it by turning the Court of the Gentiles into a marketplace instead of valuing it for the purpose of prayer and a place for Gentiles to worship this one true God it was meant for. In effect, it was also excluding the "unclean undesirables" and in essence decidedly telling them they were not wanted. This place of worship is for Jews only.
This glorious Temple and the God they purportedly worshiped was taken for granted and so was Jesus. Actually, He hardly rated at all in the eyes of the religious leaders; the ones who should have known Him. He was rejected by them instead; rejected as their Messiah. Rejected for Who He was, the One God had sent, this God in Person, their Emmanuel-God with us, the great I AM, who had come to seek and to save their lost souls. This made Jesus weep.
Jesus declared and warned that Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed. This also made Jesus weep.
By contrast, all the people could focus on was the WHEN this devastation of the Temple would happen and WHAT the sign of it would be. Jesus did not give them a direct answer. He did tell them not to be led astray by all the destruction, warring and sickness, and so on.
In our present day we have COVID-19 attacking worldwide. There are plagues of locusts in Africa; heatwaves in Japan and India where scores of people die; a typhoon in China and riots and wild forest fires in the USA.
Lots of destruction and decimation and fear.
Does it make you feel depressed?
Don't be. Jesus said to use these times as a chance to tell the Good news to others. Wouldn't that be something, instead of folks, minus their masks and social distancing, out there demanding their rights to do so?
The Christians in Wuhan did risk their lives to tell the Gospel of Jesus Christ to their compatriots out and about on the street and who were in fear and trembling over Covid.
Jesus added, some words of encouragement. He told His followers that when they faced persecution, which they would face, to make up their minds to: not worry what to say to the perpetrators; Jesus would give words of wisdom to refute their enemies. They can ask for wisdom. After all that, to "stand firm" (Luke 21:10-19).
The Wuhan Christians in the streets gave true sacrifice. They themselves could have contracted COVID-19 despite their protecting 'sop' gear. They could have been arrested for spreading the gospel. They resemble the widow and her last two copper coins we read about earlier in (Luke 21:1-4). If they'd lost their last breaths to COVID, or had been arrested, they did not have "spare" change, so to speak.
What are we willing to sacrifice for Christ?
Could we stand firm under such pressures?
The lesson to learn from the fig tree (Luke 21:29-31). When you see leave on a fig tree, you should be able to find fruit as well. It is like when they saw all these destructive happenings happen they'd know the Kingdom of God was about to come. This, even though,
"no-one knows the day or hour (Matthew 24:36);
...not even the angels nor the Son, but the Father". So Jesus did not give direct answer to the sign seekers.
Nonetheless, Jesus' warning was given. We must be ready. Accept Jesus as Savior and Lord before it is forever too late. Do not be like the people of old who did not heed the prophet's warnings and then suffered the consequences.
Jesus had another warning which can be seen in verse 34 and 36. He said that while we wait for His coming, don't be so busy with,
"feasting and drinking or worrying about life".
Think about your destiny and the destiny of others.
There are two places a person could end up: Heaven or Hell.
May all choose life with Christ in Heaven. May your spirit and soul be delivered from the eternal destruction and fly to the Heavenly everlasting life when your earthly temple disintegrates.
~ERC September 2020~
Based on Luke 21:5-38 NIV.
No copyright infringement is intended by illustrating with a downloaded photo (of the destruction of Jerusalem/Temple).
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