Chapter 1. Jesus and Disciples on The Mount of Olives.
Several matters first need be qualified before we move into actual dates and events concerning the catching away or rapture of the church, the 7 years of tribulation, and the return of Jesus Christ. The following two chapters will cover the subject.
The place? Israel at the top of the Mt. of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount. The time? Between April 1st and 3ed in the year 31 A.D., only a few days before the cross. Jesus is with his four disciples, Peter, James, John and Andrew.
Both Matt.24, and Mark 13 give us a description of the conversation that took place on that day. One of the four disciples pointed down at the Temple mount and commented to Jesus, “Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!”
Jesus replied, “See these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
The Temple and the surrounding buildings that Jesus spoke of stood at the top of Mt. Moriah. This was the second Temple the people of Israel had constructed. The construction began after the Jews had been set free, this after fulfilling their 70 Year curse God had pronounced on them for not resting the land. The Jews were now freed from captivity, and allowed to return to their own homeland by Cyrus the Great of Persia. Construction of the Temple began about 516 B.C. and finished hundreds of years later by Herod the Great who died just before Jesus birth in October of 4 B.C.
In the year 66 A.D. the Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire. Four years later in the year 70 A.D. the Roman legions under General Titus defeated the Jewish fighters, retook the Temple, then destroyed much of Jerusalem. They threw down even the greatest of stones that made up the Temple and the walls. These stones can still be seen lying in the way to this day in Jerusalem.
The Roman army numbered some thirty thousand and the Jewish army twenty-four thousand. Tactus estimated some 6 hundred thousand Jewish visitors were in Jerusalem at that time for the Passover. When the Jews were finally defeated over one million had been killed, and some 100,000 went into captivity. As for the Christians that were in the city, they fled to Pella.
In Matt.23:24, Jesus while at the Temple area and just before going to the Mt. of Olives with his disciples, said to the scribes and Pharisees, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” It was then that God had abandoned the people and the religious leaders of Israel. Thus, the words of our Lord were fulfilled.
Now keep in mind the disciples had asked Jesus 3 questions, he answered the first, but two remained.
Matt.24:3, “What shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world (age)?”
Let’s look at Jesus response:
Matt.24:36; Mark 13:32, Jesus said, “But of that day and that hour (of his return) knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”
Let me make a quick observation; Jesus said “no man knows the day or hour” but no mention of what year or month. In various parts of the world the time zones vary from continent to continent; if it were 1 P.M in New York it would be 10 A.M in California and on and on around the globe. Therefore, the day an hour would be impossible to state for the correct answer would depend solely on a person’s position in the world.
But, I am going to assume that Jesus was speaking of the day and hour from where he was standing with his disciples of the Mt. of Olives, in Israel.
Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus and the apostles are standing on the Mt. of Olives once more, when His apostles ask him the second time,
Acts 1:6, “Lord, will you at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power.”
Verse 9, “And when he had spoken these things, he was taken up (into the air) and a cloud (of angels) received him out of their (the apostles) sight.”
Now two men stood by them as they watched this wonderful event unfold, and they said to the apostles, “This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so (shall) come (return) in like same manner as you have seen him go to heaven.”
This is what it shall be like when Jesus returns at the end of the 7 years of tribulation to destroy his enemies and the enemies of the Jewish people.
Zeck.14:4, “His (Jesus) feet shall stand that day upon the mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the middle therefor toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall (be) removed toward the north, and half of it toward the south.”
Phillip LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com