Matthew chapter 24. We're going to look back at the passage that we looked at Sunday. And as I get closer to looking at that Olivet Discourse, there are a few things that I would like to kind of have in your minds before we actually start to look at the text and look at what Jesus has to say there. prophecy. Uh, the first couple were what we talked about on Sunday. The fact that, um, as Jesus is making this pronouncement, it's important for us to realize what that kind of prediction would have meant, the weight that that kind of prediction, that the temple would be utterly destroyed, what the disciples would have been hearing as they heard that. And while we just barely probably scratched the surface of that Sunday, we did get some idea of the weight of that statement. And then the second part is, um, uh, how it is and why it is that all of this was coming to an end shortly after the death of Christ. Um, the temple would be done away with. And obviously it was a form of judgment, but it was also a sign pointing to the fact that it was no longer needed, that Christ had fulfilled the function of the temple once and for all. As we look back this evening, I want to look at another side note that ought to be in the back of our minds as we look at this passage. And so we're going to start in Matthew 24. Of course, we said last time that Matthew 24 comes right after this whole pronouncement of woes and judgment upon the religious leaders of Jerusalem. And so it comes after Well, if we start in verse 37 of Matthew 23, it comes after where Jesus says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and that stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till you shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And then Matthew 24, 1. And Jesus went out and departed from the temple. And his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. 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. And we're just going to stop there. So Jesus is pronouncing judgment. Jesus is, is responding, uh, to his disciples. As I say, look at this temple, look at what do you mean? It's going to be left desolate. Look at this place. And he says, I'm telling you, there's not going to be one stone left up on another. And so it's a prophetic prediction. Jesus here makes a prediction. And really, as he makes this prediction, he gives a very, um, uh, places a very vulnerable target on his back if he's a fake. He predicts that the temple will be utterly destroyed, that it'll be destroyed to the extent that there won't be a single stone left upon another. And so let's go back to Deuteronomy chapter 18, and we'll kind of make our point from there and move on. Deuteronomy chapter 18. Of course, just a reminder, anytime we talk about a prophetic prediction, what we're talking about is someone who predicts a future event that has not yet taken place. They're saying this will happen. And God talks about that through Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 18. And we're gonna pick up in verse 15. It says, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him you shall hearken. This is Moses speaking to the people. According to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly saying, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire anymore, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a profit from among their brethren like unto thee and we'll put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thy heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken. But the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously. Thou shalt not be afraid of him. So Moses is speaking to the people here and he speaks on behalf of God and he says that God will raise up a prophet one day and you will listen to him. He will speak my words and you will take heed to what He says. And as we read that section there in verse 15 and 16, we see really a picture of Jesus there, that prophet that God would raise up, the prophet that His people would hear, that His people would listen to. And that's not necessarily what I want to zero in on, but then he goes down through verse 22 and what he does is he gives them a way to distinguish whether or not the prophet that's speaking is actually a prophet from God. So he says, I'm going to raise up one and that person you'll hear, that person you'll listen to. And then he says, there may come some other prophets presumptuously who speak in, or they claim to speak in the name of God, or maybe they speak on behalf of other gods. And he says, when those men come, you kill them. You put them away. And he says, you might say to yourself now, how in the world will we know? How will we know? Who's a legitimate prophet? Who's not a legitimate prophet? How will we know who speaks or who God is speaking through, who speaks on behalf of God? And he gives the test in verse 22. He says, when a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor cometh to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken. What he says is when a man rises up and he begins to make predictions about the future, when those things do not come to pass, you can know for sure he is not a prophet of the Lord. And then he says, um, you shall not be afraid of him. In other words, Don't reverence this man. Don't take him seriously. Don't be afraid that he's the Lord's anointed. It's not going to be, it's not a really confusing thing. When he makes a prediction, the prediction does not come to pass. You know that he is not a man who speaks on behalf of the Lord. Now that kind of seems pretty plain and straightforward, doesn't it? I mean, nobody here, when I got finished telling kind of the litmus test to the genuine prophet or not, nobody thought, my goodness, how did Israel keep up with all that? It's easy. The man makes a prediction, either it comes to pass or it doesn't come to pass, right? If it comes to pass, he's a prophet. If it doesn't, he's not a prophet. Now, while I'm not gonna get into this in any kind of detailed way, You know, we live in a day and age where there are scores of men who claim to be prophets, who make predictions that do not come to pass and yet continue to hoodwink tons of people who follow them as genuine prophets of the Lord. Jesus says, well, through Moses, here's the test. If someone speaks it and it comes to pass, it's from God. If he speaks it and it doesn't come to pass, it's not from God. Well, when we go back over to Matthew chapter 13, I'm sorry, Matthew chapter 24, or Mark chapter 13, or Luke 21, what we find there is not just that Jesus makes a prophetic prediction, what Jesus does is, he really does put himself to a, in the limelight, in the sense of there is a very concrete test of whether or not this man is a prophet of God or not. You see the scribes and the Pharisees, you'll remember this, as Jesus goes throughout His ministry, they ask for a sign, they ask for a sign, they ask for a sign, you remember that. He gives them signs, He does miracles, He does healings and those sorts of things. But what Jesus does here is predict something that's going to occur after He's dead, and it's something that no one else in that region and probably no one else on earth would have ever predicted because humanly what Christ predicted and the way it works out, it was just about impossible. It was just about impossible for an army, even the Roman army, to come through and completely destroy Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, after Jerusalem was destroyed, the Roman general Titus looked up at the structure and he looked up at how things were laid out and this pagan man who had no reverence for God said, Had it not been for the help of God, it would have been impossible for us to do this. The walls were too high. The towers were too high. We couldn't have done it. So he said, well, Brother Lewis, what's your point in all this? Well, my point in all this is a pretty simple point. It's a pretty straightforward point. And I think it's an easy point to lose or an easy point to miss as we think about prophecy, not just in the Old Testament, but whenever we look and we see Jesus' prophetic claims, and that's this. When we see a prophet of God or God himself make a prediction about the future, really what we see is the sovereignty of God on display for the world to see. You see, whenever you look at Matthew 24 or Mark 13, really what you see is Jesus claiming sovereignty. He says, I'm going to predict something that would be impossible for me to ever know had I not known it from the one, which is himself, had I not known it from the foundation of the world. No way I can make a prediction like that and it come to pass. No way I could give the details that he gives and they come to pass. And so whenever we look at that, we need to, we ought to, and it's not just that, but it's any prophecy that we see, any prophecy that we think about, we've got to look at it through the lens of a very familiar passage for us, Psalm 115.3. And that is, Our God is in the heavens, and he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. It's just that basic, and it's not that the verse is basic, but in our basic understanding of God's sovereignty, Psalm 115.3 is just one of those verses that we know, one of those verses that our mind goes to. And that is God is in the heavens and he's ruling on earth and he's doing whatever he wants to do. That's pretty much what that means. If it pleases him, he's doing it. If he wants to do it, it's being done. In Isaiah chapter 46, this is another familiar passage to us, but it's a passage that also ties together God's sovereignty along with prophetic predictions. In Isaiah chapter 46, verse 5, God starts out this way, to whom will you liken me? and make me equal, and compare me that we may be like? They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith, and he maketh it a god. They fall down, yea, they worship. They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth. From his place shall he not Remove. Yea, one shall cry unto him, yet he cannot answer nor save him out of his trouble. Remember this and show yourselves men. Bring it again to mind. Oh, you transgressors. And let's stop there for a second. God starts out in verse five and he says, who are you going to, who do you liken me unto? In other words, who can you compare me to? Who's like me? And then he starts to illustrate the likeness of really the other false gods, the other idols that are around. He says, look, he says, these guys, they lavish out this gold. They weigh the silver. They make themselves a God. They cry unto him, but he can't hear. They carry him around because he can't walk. They put him, they put him down and they, and they, they worship him. But the truth of the matter is he can't save them. and he can do absolutely nothing for them in their trouble. That's just the truth about idols, isn't it? Whether it's an idol that's made out of gold or whether it's an idol that's just placed in our heart that we set our affections on. Really what God's saying is, you can't compare me to that. As a matter of fact, you can't come up with a single thing to compare me to because I'm not like anything else. There's nothing else like God. And then he says this, verse 8. I'm sorry, verse nine, remember the former things of old for I am God and there is none else. I am God and there is none like me. declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure, calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executes my counsel from a far country, yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass, I have purposed it, I will also do it. Here God says, Remember the former things of old. Remember that I am God and there's no one else like me. There's nothing else like me. And then the example that he uses is the fact that he has declared the end from the beginning. And the fact that his counsel stands and that he does all of his pleasure. Now, whenever we think about that, we, we, no, no one in here probably has a problem with that. The fact that God has declared the end from the beginning, the fact that, that God's counsel stands, the fact that God does all of his good pleasure. And, and, and that would be a, I mean, he's God who's like him, right? Who's going to question that. But God also puts himself on trial, if it were. And the fact that there are several times throughout the scriptures, not just in, in, in, in fulfillments that are, um, um, you know, from the old to the new Testament, but in very specific and concrete predictions, um, God doesn't just generally declare the end from the beginning. For instance, if we were to look into the book of Daniel and we were to go through that, we would find that God predicts a succession of kingdoms, not just a succession of the kingdoms as far as he goes from the Babylonians to the Medes, to the Persians, to the Grecians, He doesn't just do that, but he begins to predict amounts of time that will take place. He begins to predict the amount of kings that will reign in particular lineages. He begins to predict things down to very specific details. And you know what we find when God starts to predict things in details? They come to pass. It's one thing for me to say, This is kind of a funny story. Whenever my parents owned the store, we had a lady that would come in and she just thought it was her God-given power to tell us how many kids we were going to have and how many boys and how many girls. And they were never right. And it didn't deter her. She would continue to predict. So we were going to have a boy, but we had Lily. And so, well, that was all right because she knew next we were going to have a, I don't remember what she said, but she just was in such a silly way. With me, Jason, with Tommy. You know, it would be one thing for me, or even for her, to say, I'm going to predict that I will have three kids. And that'll be that. Well, that's not that hard, right? I mean, even if I told you, when I was 18, I knew I was going to have three kids. Nobody in here goes, whoa. How many kids are my kids going to have? Right? That's just a general vague guess. But what if I predicted hundreds of years in advance that a man named Cyrus who wasn't even born and who no one even had on their mind was going to send the Jews back from exile to rebuild the temple and the city that had been wiped out by the Babylonians? Well, that's altogether different, right? I mean, if I say, brothers and sisters, write it down in the minutes, 200 years from now, a guy named John's going to pastor the church, and this is what he's going to do, and this is how he's going to do it. Obviously, you're not going to be welled by that, but 200 years from now, somebody that reads that might be, right? Did you know that in history, this is, An historian named Josephus, which is a very credible Jewish historian, said that one of the reasons Cyrus was moved to let the Jews go back was because he had read that prophecy about himself that had been written down long before he was ever a thought, and God called him out by name. Wouldn't it be something if you were to read the Bible And you were to come up on a prophecy that said, and it shall come to pass that I will call Steve Chun from the East and he will execute my will. Wouldn't that be something? Who's going to argue against that? On the other side, how big of a fool would you look like if it never happened? You see, as we look at these predictions, we find they're very specific, many of them. We find that they're very concrete, all of them. We find that God is proving himself to be the God that cannot be compared to any other God or any other person because he's the God who has sovereign control over time and space. history and he's the God that calls people by name years before they ever come into existence and says what they're gonna do. You know why? Because he does all his good pleasure. He does all his good pleasure. You see, it's not just that he looked through time and guessed what Cyrus was gonna do. It was his will before the foundation of the world that Cyrus do what he did. And so Cyrus could do nothing but what God had called him to do. And as God predicts that, God knows that, but because it's in God that Cyrus lives and moves and has his being, right? And in no other place. Daniel chapter four. Verse 34, this is after Nebuchadnezzar had been made like a beast to the field and he ate grass and he was humiliated because of his pride, judged by God. Verse 34, it says, and at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven and mine understanding returned unto me and I blessed the most high. And I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? You see what he says? He says, my senses returned, my understanding returned, and I blessed the most high and I honored him that, look how he describes God, that lives forever, whose dominion is what? Everlasting. It's an everlasting dominion. And his kingdom is from when? Generation to generation. If we were to just stop here and ask these basic questions that you may think might be too simple to ask, we can find some great comfort. So here's question number one, whenever we look at verse 34. Has there ever been a time in the existence of the earth, in the existence of the world, where God's dominion was not said? Has there ever been a time? According to Daniel, no. In other words, God has always dominated the world. His dominion has been there. So the second question is this. Has there ever been a time where God's kingdom has not been? In other words, has there ever been a time where there was another king that took up arms and kind of took control for a little bit? Well, the answer to that is no, right? Not only is the answer to that no, but the answer to that is absolutely no way, no how. Look at verse 35. All the inhabitants of the earth are as reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? So it's not just that God has kept his dominion and he's kept his kingdom, in the midst of onslaughts that have come upon them that have been challenges at times and have kind of kept them busy at times and there have been reputable foes at times that have come against God. But it's that God's dominion and his kingdom have been from everlasting because the biggest challenge he's ever faced is smaller than the drop of a bucket. It's smaller than a speck of dust on the scales. It's that God's dominion and that God's rule has been from everlasting because God is God and there is no one like him. Now let's apply this. Go to Psalm chapter, or let's go to Psalm four. And before we get to Psalm four, I just want to just kind of recap again, what it is, the point that I'm trying to drive as we talk about this, particularly in relation to the Olivet discourse, Matthew 24. And the point is this. is that every prophecy we ever read in the Old Testament or New that is made by God points to the sovereign hand of God that does whatsoever He will among the inhabitants of the earth and the armies of heaven. And nobody says, what are you doing? Why do I say that? Well, I say it because I want it in your mind as we look through that portion of scripture. But I also say it because I know that sometimes as we read through the prophets, we can get kind of bogged down and you can kind of think, what am I supposed to get out of this? You get caught up in details. You're not really sure exactly what the prophet's saying or even what he's prophesying. Can I tell you that whenever you get into those prophecies and you maybe get confused a time or two or three or a hundred, can I tell you one thing you can always remind yourself? This is pointing to the sovereign hand of God in detail. This is pointing to God is putting himself in the spotlight in detail. And what he's doing is he's putting his sovereignty on display. You see, when Jesus makes that prediction in Matthew 24, and I hope to get into some of this as we start to talk about the destruction of Jerusalem later on, he makes a big prediction. and the providential details that have to come to pass in order for that prediction to actually come true are incredible. That's just the way it is with anything, right? Look at Psalm 4. It says, Hear me when I call, O God, of my righteousness. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. Oh, you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing? Selah. But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call unto him. Stand in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Selah. offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord. There be many that say, who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increase. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Now, whenever you read Psalm 4, if you read it a couple of times, you would very quickly realize that the theme that ties Psalm 4 together is the theme of David's trust in God. Really, the whole psalm is about the fact that God is trustworthy. Hear me when I cry, O Lord, of my righteousness. You've enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer." You see, there's trust in that. He's crying out for God, he's asking God for mercy, but he says, the reason I'm doing that is because you heard me when I was in distress, not just heard, but you enlarged me when I was in distress in the past. In verse two, he's making a, a, uh, proclamation to people. This is not a prayer that David's praying to God. This is a talk that he's making to people proclamation. Oh, sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing say law, but know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call unto him. Look what he says in verse 4, stand in awe and sin not, commune with your heart, open your bed, upon your bed and be still. Stand in awe, he says. Can I tell you, there's a hundred reasons more than that. There's infinite reasons why we would stand in awe of God. But I can, I just want to encourage you again, as you maybe wrestle through some of those prophetic passages in your daily Bible reading, or some of those books in your daily Bible reading. Again, if you get through there and you're kind of confused and you don't really know exactly what's going on. Number one, God's putting his sovereignty on display. Number two, he's expecting us to stand in all of his sovereignty. Did you know that about God? God puts his sovereignty on display and one of the purposes that he does that is because he's expecting us to stand in awe if we see God for who he is. He says, stand in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. Why would we trust God? What does it mean to trust God? If you were to just answer that question to yourself, what does it mean? I've made the statement before, but it's one thing to say, I trust God. It's another thing to actually know what it is that you're trusting about God. What is it that brings peace and comfort to David as David is trusting in God? Well, he trusts in the goodness of God. He trusts in the mercies of God. He trusts in the deliverance of God. He trusts in the faithfulness of God. But you want to know what makes any of that trustworthy? The sovereignty of God. You see, it's one thing if I'm good, and it's one thing if I'm kind and if I'm willing. Maybe that's a better way to put it. It's one thing if I'm willing to be good, if I'm willing to be kind, if I'm willing to deliver you. It's a completely different thing to say that I'm able to do those things. I'm able to be kind. I'm able to be good. I'm able to deliver you. David says, I trust God because I believe and I'm confident not only that he is able to do these things, I'm sorry, that he has said he would do these things, but also that he's able to do these things. And the reason that he's able to do these things is because God does what God wants to do when God wants to do it and he can't be thrown off course. Isn't that an encouragement? So whenever you bring that into your present day, day-to-day life. You think about the things that you worry about. You think about the things that you become upset about. You think about the things that you even give praise for. You know, we've given praise for at least two things tonight. One, as Sister Wallace was talking about Brother Bobby and how well he was doing on those chemo treatments and the fact that he said it has energy and he's able to go. Well, how is it Brother Bobby's able to do that? The sovereign hand of God. How is it that he could take the same treatment that would put someone else out and yet he's able to do that? Sovereign hand of God, right? How is it that Brother Aaron can get rear-ended with somebody who didn't even tap their brakes and be here tonight without a scratch on them? I think, I don't see any scratches. And yet the same thing could happen in the same type of vehicle and everybody involved could be dead. How is it that that sort of thing happens? Well, it's the sovereign hand of God. Sovereign hand of God. I don't know if you've Heard the headlines or not. I've listened to a podcast in the mornings that talks about news and, and one of the things that it talked about a couple of days ago was, uh, a lot of the liberal media becoming just kind of, uh, frustrated and frustrated. It's kind of a mild way to put it just really downright ugly about people who say that their thoughts and prayers are with those families in California who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack and the, uh, Criticism that comes from the liberal media and from other liberal sources is, why are you praying? It's not doing anything. We need more than prayer. We need somebody who's actually going to do something. We've been hearing this, we're praying for you, and our thoughts are with you stuff for a long time, and it hasn't changed anything. So it's meaningless for you to say, I'm praying for you. Well, can I tell you, if you understand the sovereignty of God, you realize that the most meaningful thing you could actually do for anyone is to pray for the protective hand of the sovereign God of the universe, to pray for the comfort that goes beyond our understanding and our comprehension for those who are heavy hearted, to pray for the protection and guidance and really for the sovereign will of God in our lives. You see, that's not a mindless, stale exercise, if you know who God is. And so as we think about these prophetic predictions, as we think about David's saying, I'm going to lay my head down in peace because you keep me safe. We have to think about both of those coming from the same source, and that is the sovereign hand of a merciful God who has chosen to be gracious and merciful to his people and who keeps us as the apple of his eye and the palm of his hand and will not let us go. Now, I just want to say, if we have even a tiny understanding of what that means, we have a great hope. Thank you for listening to this message. Our prayer is that you've been blessed by the messages and the daily devotional blog on sermon audio from Ripley Primitive Baptist Church. We would love the opportunity to be of greater service to you and your walk with Christ. In other words, we would like to get to know you better. Do you have need of counsel, of a home church, or can we just pray for you? please feel free to contact us by phone at 662-837-8590 or visit our website at www.ripleypbc.com.