Note: It’s Holy Week (the week between Palm Sunday and Easter) during which the church commemorates the Lord Jesus Christ’s last days, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. It is an incredibly significant time in the life of the church, so if you don’t have one, this week would be a great time to find one. Churches get tons of new people around Easter, so don’t feel awkward. If you need help finding a church, give me a shout.
Consider, as the week goes on, what is happening in the life of Jesus Christ as he draws closer and closer to His death, burial, and resurrection, the most significant event in the history of mankind. Remember, as He is fully God and fully man, Christ is fully aware of the horror and agony to come just a few short days after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We will trace His teachings, words, and actions throughout the week as He draws closer and closer to Calvary.
Holy Tuesday - Events
Jesus and His disciples again pass by the withered fig tree, where Jesus speaks about the importance of faith.
Jesus continues teaching parables in the temple, speaking with complete spiritual authority and certainty. The Pharisees sense that Jesus is speaking against them, and conspire to have him arrested. However, the crowds still revere Jesus, and so the plans to seize Him are put on hold.
The “Olivet Discourse” - Jesus teaches on the destruction of Jerusalem and the times leading up to the final judgment.
What is Jesus telling His disciples about faith?
Countless believers have used Christ’s words here about the withered fig tree and faith that moves mountains to mean that anyone with true faith should be able to perform miraculous healings and supernatural acts. This is missing the crux of Jesus’s point, which is that we should always believe that God will answer our prayers when we seek Him in true faith. Further, if we want our prayers to be heard, we must not harbor any resentment or grudge against our neighbor. Rather, we must, as Christ taught, pray that God would forgive us our debts even as we forgive our debtors. For further personal study, consider the symbolism of the term mountain (“whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea”) as it relates to Mount Zion or Jerusalem in Psalm 46:2, Jeremiah 51:25, and Zechariah 4:7.
Why do the Pharisees conspire against Jesus even while the people revere Him?
Jesus completely disrupts the entire religious system of the day. Not only does He claim to be God, which would’ve been considered blasphemy to the religious leaders, He also threatens their authority, calls them to repentance, and does not observe the Mosaic Law in accordance with their interpretation or the ways they believe He should. In hindsight, we can see how ridiculous this is, that the Pharisees would criticize the eternal God for violating His own law, but this goes to show how blinded they were with the hatred and rage that would result in Christ’s crucifixion just a few short days later.
What is Jesus teaching about His second coming and the final judgment in the Olivet Discourse?
There are a few different mainstream interpretations of Jesus’s words in Matthew 24 regarding His second coming and the final judgment. It would take way too long to break down each, but it’s worth researching. The one I find most convincing is that the majority of Christ’s words in Matthew 24 were fulfilled when the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. Quote source here:
The main advantage of this view is that it takes seriously the time-frame references found in the Olivet Discourse. It also focuses on the context of the discourse — our Lord’s prediction of the fall of the temple (Matt. 24:2) — providing a coherent answer to the question as to when these things will take place (v. 3), that is, when Jerusalem and its temple will be destroyed.
This approach to the Olivet Discourse does not deny Christ’s future coming in glory “to judge the living and the dead,” as the creeds say. Those who advocate this view just argue that most of Matthew 24 is not directly applicable to this event. But many other passages affirm the second coming of Christ to usher in the new heavens and earth, and Christians must affirm that there is a day of judgment for the world (I Thess. 1:9–10).
In the end, we shouldn’t make mountains out of molehills; there’s no point in “majoring in the minors,” whether it’s pre-mil vs. post-mil or the exact timeline of the fulfillment of this discourse, as interesting and beneficial as those things can be for personal study. The important part is that we humbly receive Christ’s words with faith and that we commit to knowing Him more and being sanctified by His word, and refuse to be divided by non-essential issues like exact dates or times.
Go In Strength
Pray with faith that God hears you and will answer you.
Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and submit to His word.
Consider Jesus’s words in Matthew 24:9, when He tells His disciples that they will be hated by the nations and put to death for His name, and the ways in which they ultimately died.
Bartholomew - Flayed to death by whip
Matthew - Impaled by spears in Ethiopia
James (Son of Zebedee) - Thrown off wall then clubbed to death
Jude - Crucified in Persia
John - Died in exile on island of Patmos
Matthias - Stoned and beheaded
Philip - Hung by iron hooks upside down
Peter - Crucified upside down by Nero
Thomas - Stabbed with a spear
James (The Lesser) - Beheaded
Simon- Crucified
Andrew - Crucified
“The one who endures to the end will be saved.”
May your Holy Week be a time of repentance, faith, meditation, and prayer.
See you tomorrow.
In Christ,
LC
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