When Will These Things Be? A Guide to the Olivet Discourse.

 

INTERPRETIVE GUIDELINE – THE OLIVET DISCOURSE[1]

 

The Olivet Discourse is found in Matthew 24–25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. This speech by Jesus is, at minimum, a prophecy against the Jerusalem temple and also, we see here a prophecy of Jesus’s Second Coming as Judge of the world. A faithful interpretation of the speech will honor the timestamps and the intended audience of our Lord indicated by the word “you”.

 

 

I THESE VERSES REFER TO EVENTS THAT ARE TO CHARACTERIZE THE ENTIRE PERIOD FROM A.D. 33 TO A.D. 70, THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE AND THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.
Matthew 24:3–14	Mark 13:1-13	Luke 21:10–19
II THESE VERSES REFER TO THE ONE SIGN THAT INDICATES THE PROPHESIED DESTRUCTION IS ABOUT TO OCCUR.
Matthew 24:15-28	Mark 13:14-23	Luke 21:20-24
III THIS PERIOD OF UNPRECEDENTED TRIBULATION (A.D. 66–70) INAUGURATES OR INTRODUCES A TIME OF UNDETERMINED LENGTH, DURING WHICH TRIBULATION WILL BE PROMINENT, BUT DURING WHICH ALSO WE ARE ALERTLY TO LOOK FOR THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. THIS IS THE PRESENT AGE IN WHICH WE LIVE, CALLED BY LUKE “THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES” (LUKE 21:24; CF. ROM. 11:25).
Matthew 24:29-31	Mark 13:24-27	Luke 21:25-28

 

 

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[1] With help from Storms, Sam. Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative. Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition.

 

The End of the Bible Reading Program for 2021

For many of us who follow a read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year program, we have entered into the Revelation of Jesus Christ — the last of the New Testament canon.  William Hendrikson [1] reminds us that the Revelation is neither an entirely futuristic Book or a chronological Book:

“Every paragraph of this glorious prophecy is filled with significance, instruction and comfort for the seven churches of proconsular Asia. This book is an answer to the crying need of that particular day, and we must permit contemporaneous circumstances to shed their light on its symbols and predictions. True, this book has a message for today, but we shall never be able to understand ‘what the Spirit is saying to the churches’ of today unless we first of all study the specific needs and circumstances of the seven churches of ‘Asia’ as they existed in the first century AD.”

“A careful reading of the book of Revelation has made it clear that the book consists of seven sections, and that these seven sections run parallel to one another. Each of them spans the entire dispensation from the first to the second coming of Christ.”

“ Each section gives us a description of the entire gospel age, from the first to the second coming of Christ, and is rooted in Israel’s history under the old dispensation to which there are frequent references.”

“ Our division is as follows: 1. Christ in the midst of the seven golden lampstands (1–3). 2. The book with seven seals (4–7). 3. The seven trumpets of judgment (8–11). 4. The woman and the Man-child persecuted by the dragon and his helpers (the beast and the harlot) (12–14). 5. The seven bowls of wrath (15, 16). 5. The seven bowls of wrath (15, 16). 6. The fall of the great harlot and of the beasts (17–19). 7. The judgment upon the dragon (Satan) followed by the new heaven and earth, new Jerusalem (20–22).”

“ The Apocalypse is steeped in the thoughts and images of the Old Testament . . . Westcott and Hort give nearly four hundred references or allusions to the Old Testament, and an intensive study of any chapter of the Apocalypse soon reveals that this list of four hundred references is itself incomplete. It is on the basis of these sacred Scriptures [Old Testament] that we must interpret the Apocalypse.“

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1. Henrikson, William, More Than Conquerors, An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation, Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan, © 1940, 1967