Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing Bible study in Luke. It's been a month or so since we were
engaged in this study, and we're in Luke 21. You turn in your Bibles there
to Luke chapter 21. The last time we were together we were
covering that portion of the beginning of the chapter, the
text that had to do with the rich men casting their gifts
into the treasury and the widow with the two mites. all the things that went with
that. So today we're in verse 5 through 7 where Jesus is talking
about the destruction of the temple. So beginning in verse
5 of Luke chapter 21, And as some spake of the temple, how
it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these
things which you behold, the days will come in which there
shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown
down. And they ask him, saying, Master,
but when shall these things be, and what sign Will there be when
these things shall come to pass? And then he goes on and lists
some things for them to look at. But I wanted to focus on
the temple part today, and then the next time we'll kind of cover
the rest of that. So our text again follows this
illustration of the widow who cast all her living or complete
trust in Christ. She cast all her living into
the treasury. how rare that was compared to
the showiness of the others that just were casting in money just
to be seen of men and their pious religious contributions that
were for show only. So today I wanted to look at
the temple and it's important that we keep in mind the purpose
of God in building the temples. and what they were a type of,
and whom they were a type. In the first temple, the sovereignty
of God was so magnificently displayed in the direction of it, and the
creation of it. He created all the, you want
to know we lose sight of, well, they cut all these trees, and
they mined all this marble, and they mined all this gold, and
silver, and brass, and all the things. But God created all that
stuff. He created everything. He was
the source of it. You know, in the early days of
the Old Testament, when they built altars, they weren't to
hew the stones. God had made those stones, and
they were just to use them as they were. And what they depicted,
they weren't to alter it. And when we look at the temple,
God designed the temples. God gave David the pattern for
the first temple. He didn't allow him to build
it. David had it in his heart. If you'll recall from Norm's
studies in Kings and Chronicles, David, it was in his heart to
build a house to the Lord, but the Lord said through Nathan
the prophet said, no, you're a man of war, killed a lot of
people. You're not going to build a house
that represents Me. He did collect all the material
for it. He got the wood and got the money
and he got all the things necessary stacked in order, ready to go,
because the prophet said, your son will be the one that builds
this house. And the Lord gave David a pattern
for the temple. In 1 Chronicles chapter 28, as David is handing over the
charge of this to his son Solomon, in 1 Chronicles 28, verse 11,
Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch,
and of the houses thereof, and the treasuries thereof, and the
upper chambers thereof, and the inner parlors thereof, and the
place of the mercy seat, and the pattern of all that he had
by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord, and of
the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of
God, and the treasuries of the dedicated things." So the Lord
provided David with a pattern, a layout, And he accumulated
all of the material to do that, and then he handed it over to
Solomon. And Solomon put it all together,
and then he had this huge dedication where he sacrificed thousands
of animals, and he made a long prayer at the end of it. And the point of it was, it was
really a magnificent structure And the Lord had blessed in it. But he just kind of said, it's
nothing compared to the God that I know. It's in comparison. It's so small. And in his prayer in 1 Kings
8, 27, he says, But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold,
the heaven of heavens cannot contain me. how much less this
house that I've built. He just couldn't kind of wrap
his arms around how a god of that magnitude, of that greatness
could be contained in this comparatively small building that was by the
standards then was pretty magnificent. So that picture of that that temple that God, in Solomon's
prayer, he discussed how it's kind of like what we find in
all of the scriptures where they have a history lesson in there
of God's grace from the beginning of time up till then and how
He brought them out of Egypt. supplied the tabernacle and everything,
and now they're settled and they have this temple in Jerusalem,
which was no sooner built than they've corrupted everything. The second temple was by God's
direction, and we find, again, Norm brought many lessons on
this from Ezra, Nehemiah, and all those prophets. In Ezra 1,
verse 2, thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven
hath given me, all the kingdoms of the earth. And he hath charged
me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah." And so he's
speaking to these Jews that were brought over in the captivity
that the Lord said would be prophesied that they would go back and take
care of this. Who is there among you of all his people? His God
be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem, which
is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He
is the God which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any
place where he sojourneth, let the man of his place help him
with silver and with gold and with goods and beasts beside
the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
And then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin
and the priests and the Levites. And it says, with all them whose
spirit God had raised to go up and build the house of the Lord,
which is in Jerusalem. And then he went through extensive
lessons there on how they built that and what the things they
were up against and the people they were up against and everything. So this is the temple that we're
looking at here in this text in Luke. This is the temple,
the second temple, that was built on the ruins of the first temple. So they built it, but it was
much smaller than the first temple. And this temple that we're looking
at in this text was extensively modified by Herod the Great,
who in Roman times, and he was an Idumean, in that Greek term
that means Edomite. He was of the Edomites, and we
can look at their history back in Malachi. Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. He laid the heritage of the Edomites,
the descendants of Esau, waste. And they were cursed. So we have
a cursed guy that takes on a building project of the temple that's
kind of smaller and not so magnificent as the first one, and starts
enhancing it and enlarging it. A descendant of Esau does that. And so our attention then is
drawn to this temple, which then existed. And he began this project
about 22 BC, and it took 60 some years to complete. And the original
Herod, the scriptures record that Herod the Great He died, and his sons kind of
took over. There was Herod Antipater, Herod
the Tetrarch, and various sons of his that took over this. But anyway, this temple was commonly
called Herod's Temple. What a slap in the face to God.
Yeah, that's Herod's temple, not the temple of the Lord. And he began this building project,
as we mentioned, in about 22 B.C. to enhance it. Boy, what a picture of religion
that we have. God's not good enough. What God has done is
not good enough. We need to enhance that. We need to make it more
attractive. We need to make it more palatable. We need to make
it more appealing. And we need to make it reflect
us. Herod must be pretty magnificent
if he spent all that money enhancing the temple and making it making
it look better according to his view. And I think it's important
that we take a look and say, where in the Scripture does it
say that the Spirit of the Lord raised up Herod and gave him
a pattern and a vision of what that was supposed to look like?
That had already been done, and he kind of stepped over that. He kind of bypassed that, and
he kind of inserted his own viewpoint of what He wanted it to look
like. And so we have these disciples
here. This particular piece of Scripture
is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And we read the one
in Luke where it says, And some spake of the temple, His disciples,
and it may have been others that were there as He was in the temple
teaching. And they said, Look at this temple,
how it's adorned with goodly stones and gifts. And the Lord says, And as for
these things which you behold, the days will come in which there
shall not be one, and not be left one stone upon another that
shall not be thrown down. And they ask him, saying, Master,
when shall these things be? And what sign will there be when
these things shall come to pass? Isn't that typical religious?
Well, something bad's going to happen. We want a sign of when
that's going to happen. We want forewarning. We want to know
ahead of time so we can repent in time before that happens and
bad stuff happens to us. In Matthew Chapter 24, it's recorded
the same text. There's one thing added
here that's very interesting. In Matthew 24-1, Jesus went out
and departed from the temple. And that would be the last time.
He was arrested shortly after and taken and crucified. He departed
from the temple and his disciples came to him for to show him the
buildings of the temple. They were going to show the Lord. They were going to
show Christ. Look at the temple. Isn't it wonderful? And Jesus
said unto them, see you not all these things? Don't you see? That's kind of the title of our message is,
do you not see? I'm here. I'm here. See ye not all these things? Verily, verily, I say unto you,
there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall
not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the Mount
of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell
us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of
thy coming in the end of the world? So they kind of compound
an error and add some more to it. And so they've linked the
destruction of the temple with the end of the world, and Second
Coming, and a lot of things that turned out not to be the case. But that's how religion... I
was reading it in one of the commentaries. Oh, in 1844, man
said he calculated out all the things and looked at all the
signs in the scripture and said, the end of the world's coming
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we've seen that happen time
after time in California and various places where some person
with a large platform predicts the end of the world. There's
guys down at the post office with their signs up, the end
is coming. And yet, that's not what this
is about. When shall these things be and
what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?
That's what it says in Mark 13, verse 4. Same basic premise. They said, look at all these.
Look at what manner of stones and what buildings are here.
Look at the magnificence of it. Look at the splendor of it. And yet they had the thing that
the person that the temple was supposed to represent in their
midst and yet they had this vision of the building was the thing
to be worshipped. The building was the thing. And
even in Acts we find where the elders had declared, well, it's
blasphemy if you swear against the temple and blasphemy if you
do wrong things in the temple. And the temple was the focus
of everything. The temple was the focus of the
application of the law. the symbol of you doing things
for your redemption. So they had this wrong theology from the very beginning. And they had an incorrect assumption
that was made that the destruction of the temple would be simultaneous
with the end of the world, and a sign of thy coming there in
Matthew 24, 3. And you know, the destruction
of the temple was actually accomplished in 70 AD from a revolt of the
Jews that began in 66 AD, where they revolted. And we'll cover
this a little bit more in our next lesson. These people were
slaves of the Romans. And the Romans were taxing them
to death. And they hired tax people to
collect the taxes that they were supposed to collect for the government.
And they said, whatever else you get, that's your pay. So
they were pretty inventive, as we've covered in some of our
previous lessons, on how they would do that. They had the road
tax, and the donkey tax, and the how many wheels on your cart
tax. As long as they paid Rome what
was due Rome, they were good to go. They were aggravated about
that. One of the governors got into
the temple and robbed the treasury of a lot of silver during the
60 A.D. period. He stole a bunch of silver
out of there for himself, robbed the temple. And then one of the
other, who was the Caligula, I believe was the Roman ruler
at the time, he declared himself a god and he said, I want a statue
of myself in every place of worship. Well, the Jews just had a fit
over that. So they had all these things
that accumulated, and the Romans killed a bunch of them for minor
insurrections and things. Anyway, they had an open revolt
in 66 A.D., and by 70 A.D., the Romans had come in there and
crushed them, sacked the city. They besieged it for months and
months and months. Millions of people were there
for the Passover. They starved. Havoc on an unparalleled scale
of destruction. And as Jesus talks about these
things, He says, but that's not the end. That's just going to
happen, but that's not the end. So we'll get into that next time,
but I didn't mean to lead you down a rabbit trail there. But
you know, just nearly every generation has declared that the end is
either here now or is coming soon. And that's not what we're
to be looking for. And that's not the cause. It's not what we should be looking
for. So from this temple standpoint,
We have a dramatic example of how the works of men shall not
stand. They removed almost every vestige
of anything that had to do with Christ from the temple, and added
all these invalid conclusions that were designed, and they
use them to this very day to They amalgamate them into an
eschatology timeline and list of events, which proceed and
announce the second coming, and use that to promote the aim
of what we would call fear conversions. You better get right with God,
because next Thursday, the end is going to come. You've got
until then to repent. Isn't that crazy? And they're
not going to do that. That's not going to have any
effect. So that's not how the gospel works. That's not the
method God uses to bring his sheep in. And all these things are in stark
contrast to what Jesus actually said in the following scripture.
So it's hard to see how they kind of veered off the track
there, but as we were discussing earlier today, that's easily
done and we see it in much of what's written. In Luke 21.9, he says, when you
hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified, for these things
must first come to pass, but the end is not by and by. In
Matthew 24.6, you'll hear of wars and rumors of wars, see
that you be not troubled, for all these things must come to
pass, but the end is not yet. In Mark 13, 7, you will hear
of wars and rumors of wars. Be ye not troubled, for such
things must needs be, but the end shall not be yet. So he's
just telling them, well, these things happen. According to God's
purpose, as Norm mentioned, that God takes things that are situations
like this that have their roots in evil and somehow works them
for good to save much people alive, as it turns out. And yet,
they get turned around and used for another purpose altogether. And you know what he says as
we get into this next time? He says, you know what? Some
of you parents, your parents are going to turn against you
and your brothers and your sisters are going to turn against you.
They're going to betray you. Some of you are going to be killed.
He says, but not a hair of your head, not a hair of your head
is going to be harmed. from a spiritual standpoint,
because it's pretty difficult to say that physically the hair
on your head might not suffer somewhat if you get thrown to
the lions or you get your head chopped off or whatever. But
spiritually, in God's viewpoint from eternity, not a hair of
your head is going to be touched. So, he looks at things in a different
way than we might as we're here. So, you know the true key that
he says in these scriptures is, but first, the Gospel must be
preached in every nation. the times of the Gentiles is
not fulfilled. The Gospel hasn't got to all
the Gentile nations because I have people from every kindred, nation,
tongue, and tribe that must be brought in. I have sheep in other
folds here that I have to gather up. So again, that's the the key. The gospel must be declared
and preached in every nation and thus every one of the Lord's
sheep in each of their times according to the purpose of God
must be brought in. And you know again this would
be the last time Jesus was in the temple and that fulfilled
some Old Testament prophecies. Remember that the physical temple
of the day was constructed by the purpose of God, and that
was recorded in Haggai on the ruins of the former temple built
by Solomon. It was much smaller, less elegant
than the former. But we find some really striking
similarities to what some of the other prophets wrote about
that very thing. Isaiah said, Isaiah 53 says,
Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? And he says, remember, he says,
Do you not see? You see all this stuff? I'm right here. Do you not see? To whom is the arm of the Lord
been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant
and as root out of dry ground. He hath no form or comeliness. And when we shall see him, there's
no beauty that we should desire him. So the second temple had
a different kind of perspective that typified the picture of
Christ coming in his humble nature and dwelling with men. There was no beauty that we should
desire in Him. He came and He was rejected.
You know, this temple was built at the direction of God the Father
as recorded in Haggai and Ezra and Nehemiah. You can go back
to Norm's lessons there on Sermon Audio and listen to those again.
As we mentioned, it was enhanced by Herod the Edomite. This project
that was completed, according to Josephus, by 63 AD, which
was only seven years before it was torn to the ground and destroyed. What a picture
of religion produced by men. God is not enough. He needs enhancement
by men. Isn't that a truth that was so
obvious here and is so prevalent today? You know, in Psalm 127,
it says, Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain
that build it. Except the Lord keep the city,
the watchman waketh, but in vain. You know, millions of people
were in Jerusalem when it was sacked. And the temple was the
strongest fortification there and many people, thousands of
people flocked to the temple because it was a superstructure
and that we'll be safe in the temple. But they set it on fire
when they broke in. They set it on fire and they
set the city on fire. And they just slew everybody
that was in their way to get at all the stuff. The temple was nearly doubled
in size by Herod, and it was as strong as a fortress, and
men would trust their lives to its strength in the days to come,
but it wouldn't prevail. They didn't trust into the Christ
that it represented. They trusted in that physical
aspect of it. In Josephus' book of Antiquities
of the Jews, he says the stones were like 50 feet long and 24
feet broad and 16 feet thick. In his book, it was all in cubits,
but that was kind of the rough translation of the dimensions
of it. That's huge. That's a big block of rock. It
seemed like nobody can get through that. Josephus also recorded
that the temple was covered with gold plates, and when the sun
shined on it, it was blinding to look at from a distance. And where there was no gold,
the marble blocks were of such a pure white that from a distance
it appeared as though snow had fallen on the temple." What a
visual thing. And as we compare all this as
well as the trappings of much of modern religion that's contrived
by men to, and we look at what Isaiah wrote, he hath no form
nor comeliness that we should desire him. The temple, the physical temple,
the ornate, the iconistic, it became the focus of the worship
and trust instead of the very Christ that it was to picture. In Haggai, there's a spiritual
question posed. And we're going to go over to
Haggai chapter 2 if you want to turn there quickly. What a
picture. What sovereignty and glory were
pictured in the first temple? And it said the glory of the
Lord filled the temple when Solomon dedicated it. Fire came down
and consumed the sacrifice. Now we have what a picture of
a humble nature of Christ in the second temple, which men
thought was inferior. And yet the glory of the Lord
in Christ would be greater than that in the former. That's what
it tells us in Haggai chapter 2, where he writes, Who is left
among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do
you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison
of it as nothing? It's pretty compared to the old
temple. Some sat down and wept when they
saw the comparison, when they saw how small it was. And yet
they didn't see how that represented Christ at the direction of God. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel,
saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedek, the
high priest, and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith
the Lord, and work, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.
According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of
Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you. Fear not, for thus
saith the Lord of hosts. Yet once, it is a little while,
and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and
the dry land. And I will shake all nations."
You know, for this purpose, Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles,
the people of Israel were all shaken. They were all gathered
together for this one purpose that God had before determined
to be done. I will shake all nations, and
the desire of all nations shall come, and I'll fill this house
with glory, saith the Lord of hosts." He was there. He said, the silver's mine, the
gold's mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter
house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of
hosts. And in this place, in Christ,
will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts." In this smaller,
more humble temple that pictured Christ who humbled Himself and
became obedient unto the death of the cross and for the joy
that was set before Him came and endured all that. At this
moment in the text, the glory of the Lord, the Prince of Peace
with God was in this structure which God had caused to be constructed
as a type, and then was turned into a man-made structure filled
with corruption." You know, he said, you made it
a den of thieves. You made this house of prayer
of the nations a den of thieves. How awful. Malachi says, you
offer polluted bread on my altar. Chapter 1, verse 7. In the next
verse he says, you offer blind sacrifices. You offer the lame
and the sick in Malachi 1.8. All the things that should have
typified Christ, a lamb without spot, a lamb without blemish,
a perfect sacrifice that would satisfy the righteousness and
justice of God. He threw all that out for filthy
lucre and he didn't care what it represented. He said, well,
we're just going to fulfill the mechanical aspects that says
we have to offer sacrifice and we're not going to look at that
part that says it has to be a lamb without spot and without blemish
and it has to have these characteristics and can't be lame or sick or
crippled or blemished or you know something that we can't
sell in the marketplace because no one would buy it. for a small fee, we'll accept
that and use it at the sacrifice. No vestige of Christ remained
in the place, the building, the physicalness of it, the things
that went on within it. There were some like the widow
that came there in the true spirit of Christ and demonstrated their
total trust in Him, but not many. Micah, the prophet Micah by the
Spirit was led to prophesy the destruction of this corruption
was coming in Micah 3.12. Therefore shall Zion for your
sake be plowed as a field. Jerusalem shall become heaps.
The mountain of the house is the high places of the forest."
Just torn down. You know, in our study in Luke
chapter 19, he mentions this very thing about
the temple. He says, this place is going
to be torn down. You're going to be surrounded
by an army. They're going to cast a trench
about you and keep you in on every side and lay you even with
the ground and thy children within thee. And they won't leave one
stone upon another because you knew not the time of thy visitation. So our text today, some came
to the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts
and he said, As for these things, which ye behold, the days will
come in which there shall not be left one stone upon another
that shall not be thrown down." All the efforts of man thrown
down. All the efforts of man brought
to naught. the things which you behold."
And so the question is, do you not see? Do you not see the real
Christ? Do you not see what's wrong?
You know, in John it says, lest a man be born again, he can't
see the kingdom of God. I lay in Zion a foundation stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure
foundation. And yet, they eliminated that,
they covered it up, didn't trust in that. Well, we're out of time. Isaiah
66, 1 and 2, you might want to read that where it says, the
most high does not dwell in temples made with hands. So next time, Signs of the times not. So until next time, be free as
always.