Notice, the questions are not specifically asking about the end times, rather the questions are related to what Jesus said about the end of the Temple they were marveling upon.
8 And he said, Take heed that you be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draws near: go not therefore after them. 9 But when you shall hear of wars and tumults, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet.
10 Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: 11 And great earthquakes shall be in various places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
These are familiar imagery as seen in Mark 13 and Matthew 24. BUT Jesus shifts back from end times / Day of the Lord focus, to the near future. His teaching in this specific way it is said allowed a large number of Jews to escape Jerusalem BEFORE Tacitus and Vespasian razed the city and the Temple burned to the ground. The following verses are specific to the near future, the trials of the Apostles as the Gospel is begun to be spread across the planet.
12 But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. 13 And it shall turn out to you for a testimony. 14 Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate beforehand what you shall answer: 15 For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to contradict nor resist.
16 And you shall be betrayed both by parents, and brothers, and kinsfolk, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. 17 And you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. 18 But there shall not a hair of your head perish. 19 In your patience you will gain your souls.[He that endures unto the end shall be saved!]
Notice in what follows that the phrasing is so close to what you read in Matthew 24 in places and in Mark 13. Jesus is about to give Prophecy for the near term fate of Jerusalem, which was surrounded by the Roman Legions while Vespasian returned to Rome to settle issues of the Caesar, leaving his son, Tacitus, to command the gradual encircling. THEN JESUS shifts to the long view from that near view.
20 And when you shall see Jerusalem surrounded with armies, then know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let them who are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them who are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the country enter into it. 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
Bible events have a way of reprising themselves in patterns. God and the devil both have a certain modus operandi with respect to a sinful world, and as sinners come on the scene and leave it, the patterns repeat. To try to see what is going on, one has to look not only at the small patterns but at the large ones, and look to the Lord in general to open one’s mind.
Luke 21 is a companion of Matthew 24 and Mark 13 or the 7 trumps. First sign of the return of our Savior is the great tribulation of mass deception and boy is it ever on. Now, seriously, why would Christ need to ‘remove’ His church because of mass deception or as Paul uses the word apostasy.
Bookmark