Hello and welcome to our program. Today we begin another series in Matthew chapter 24. Have your Bible ready if you can. reading in Matthew chapter 24 it says and Jesus went out and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple well he'd been seeing those buildings for the last three and a half years why are they doing this well they came and Jesus said unto them see ye not all these things Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down." Now, they're all excited about the buildings. Jesus said, you know, and it happened. It happened. Titus came in 40 years later, totally destroyed that building. Don't get all excited about the buildings, fellas. They're very temporal. You need to be concerned about the eternal things. Well, in verse 3 we read, And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end? of the world. Now, in order to understand this portion of Scripture, we really need to go back and see what was happening just prior to that. We go back to chapter 23, and we read there, in verse number one, then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples. Now you have this phrase, then spake Jesus. The word then appears in the Bible 2,168 times and it is a word that is expressing a connection to the circumstances of the previous chapter. Now, the circumstances of the previous chapter, we read back in chapter 22 and verse number 15 that the Pharisees were very upset. And it says here in verse 15, then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. Well, that would be like a group of ants getting together and getting on a railway track and saying, maybe we can derail his freight train. Not gonna happen. Well, they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, and so they sent out their henchmen to try and trap him in his words. Well, we read in verse 18, But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Well, he gave them the answer to their question, and we read in verse 22, And when they had heard these words, they marveled and left him, and went their way. Well, then in verse 23, we read, And when they came with their questions, trying to trap him, Jesus' answer was, in verse 29, he said unto them, ye do err, not knowing the scriptures. Now the Pharisees prided themselves on how much of the scriptures they thought they knew. Jesus said, no, you don't know what you're talking about. But we get down to verse 34, and we read, but When the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Now, they were gathered together back here in verse 15, took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. Well, that isn't happening, so they're gathering together. so they sent a lawyer in verse number 35 and and when Jesus put him to silence we read that in verse 46 and no man was able to answer him a word neither does any man from that day forth ask him any more questions well we get into chapter 23 and then it says then spake Jesus to the multitude and his disciples so he's speaking to two groups here. He's speaking to the multitude at large, the general population there, and he is speaking to his disciples. Now, what he does, first of all, is he publicly exposes the leaders of apostasy. He said he spoke to the multitude and to the disciples, saying the scribes And the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, and he uses the word, they do this, and they do that, and they do this, all the way down through to verse number five, in fact, verse number nine. He goes through here, and he exposes them for what they really are. Well, then in verse number 13, he turns directly to those hypocrites, to those false leaders of that day, those who are really the promoters of the apostasy of that hour. And he said to them in verse 13, but woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. Verse 14, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. verse 15 woe unto you scribes and pharisees and hypocrites 16 woe unto you ye blind guides verse 17 ye fools and blind verse 19 ye fools and blind verse 23 woe unto you scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites 24 ye blind guides again in 25 woe unto you scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites verse 26 thou blind pharisee 27 woe unto you scribes and pharisees and hypocrites 29 but woe unto you scribes and pharisees and hypocrites Verse 33, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers. Well, that was Jesus' final message in the temple. You know, we don't get much preaching like that now. We don't expose them for what they are. We have meetings with them today. Well, we find here that when this was done, he turned to them and he said in verse number 38 of Matthew 23, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." Your house. Now, nine times in the New Testament, the temple is referred to as the temple of God, but not here. Jesus says, your house is left unto you desolate. Well, same thing's happening at the end of the age. We read in Revelation chapter two, and God writes seven pastors about the conditions of the seven churches there. And in Revelation 2 and verse number 5, the Lord says, I'm going to remove thy candlestick. Now, it used to be that it was Jesus said, I'll build my church. No, not anymore. This is thy candlestick, like the temple was your house. And that tells us in Revelation 1 and 20, that the candlesticks were the seven churches. Well, as we get into chapter 24, Jesus went out and departed from the temple. He went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came unto him for to show him the buildings of the temple. Now, the temple, 17 times in Matthew, 11 times in Mark, 19 times in Luke and 14 times in John, we read about the temple. And so now he departed from the temple and his disciples came unto him and they're upset about this. And they're saying, see, not the temple. You're going to walk away from the temple. Well, again, as we said earlier, don't get all excited about the things that are temporal. Get your focus on the things that are eternal. Well, we read here, and Jesus went out and departed from the temple. Chapter 23, we have seen he has been dealing with apostasy, particularly with his leadership, and we have seen that what we have back there is real preaching. There's no guessing who he was referring to. He said, you scribes and you Pharisees. We have some real preaching here. He exposes them for what they are. We have some real preaching here. He turns his comments to the apostles in verse 13 through 33 of the last chapter. Real preaching. He turns his focus on the followers of the apostate leaders. And he's not so harsh with them as he was with the leaders of apostasy. However, they're all making choices, and our choices have consequences. Jesus says to the multitude, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. And so their followers of the Pharisees, they're making decisions. He said, you would not. And your house is left unto you desolate. And so the disciples have been traveling with Jesus for three and a half years now, and it's coming to an end. And this message that he preaches, well, what I call real preaching, and he left the temple for the last time in in chapter 24 and verse number 1, and we see him at that point teaching the remnant. He's got a handful of disciples there, and he starts with a wake-up call. He says to them in verse 2, Don't you understand? Do you not perceive what is going on? After three and a half years, they should have. Well, he said, basically, it's too late for them. Verse number two, he says, there's judgment coming. There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And 40 years later, the Romans came in under Titus and slaughtered millions of Jews and destroyed the temple. Well, Jesus now sat down with that remnant, with that small group who were interested in doing what was right, except of course for Judas, and he has a private session with these men. We'll look at it in our next broadcast. Be sure and tune in.