Well, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 24. We can continue our
study in the book of Matthew beginning to look at chapter
24 this morning. Before we begin looking into
God's Word, let's go to Him in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
for your mercy and your grace to your people. that out of your
goodness, you've given us yet one more opportunity to meet
together, to worship and praise your matchless name, to have
your word open to us, to read it and study it, to have Christ
proclaim from your word. Father, how we thank you. And
Father, I beg of you that you would not allow us to take this
blessed privilege for granted. to be able to hear your gospel
preached, to be able to worship in peace and unity, to be able
to worship in freedom without thought of reprisal or any such
thing, Father, we're thankful. And I also beg of you, Father,
that you would mix faith in with everything that we hear this
morning. Enable us to hear with the ear of faith, to see with
the eye of faith, and to see the Lord Jesus Christ, to love
him, to believe him, to rest in him. Father, we have so much to be
thankful for. How abundantly you've blessed
us. You've spiritually, you've given us everything. Everything. You've blessed us so much materially. You've met every need. Father,
we're thankful. And we beg of you that you would
forgive us for the often times we're ungrateful and murmur and
complain against your goodwill after all you've done for us
and all you've given us. Father, for those that you brought
in the time of trouble and trial, we pray for them. We pray your
hand of healing and comfort. Continue to pray for our sister,
Barb, that you'd restore her to health and strengthen her.
We pray for Novi, Father, that you would give her a kidney soon. We pray for our expectant mothers,
that, Father, you would be with them, that you'd give safe delivery,
give health and life, we pray. Thank you for bringing Joyce
back to us. Thank you for your mercy to her. Now, Father, bless
us as we look into your word. Enable us to see the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's in his blessed name. For
his sake, we pray. Amen. Now, I've titled our lesson this
morning, The Prophecy of the Stones Thrown Down. Now, this
chapter 24 we begin to study this morning is full of prophecy. Some of these prophecies we see,
we understand because they've already come to pass. Some of
them we don't fully understand because they haven't come to
pass yet. They're still gonna happen out there in the future.
Some of these prophecies clearly concern the judgment of Israel,
the destruction of Jerusalem and of that whole religious economy. Some of these prophecies concern
the second coming of our Savior and the end of the world Some
refer to both at the same time. Probably all of them do. I'll
paraphrase. Pershing said when all is said
and done at the end of the world, we'll probably look back and
see how these things apply to several different areas, not
just the Jews or not just the end of the world. And I believe
he's right. And people get real bound up
now in this thing of prophecy and the things specifically written
in this chapter. And let me give you two things
that I know are true about prophecy. Number one is this. The Lord
does not intend for us to understand these prophecies before they
come to pass specifically concerning his second coming, the end of
the world. We're not going to be able to
look at this prophecy and tell when the Savior is getting ready
to come. We're not going to be able to predict it. We're not
going to be living our daily lives and say, you know, I can
tell this now that the Lord's coming in any day. We'll never
be able to figure that out because the Lord said it's not revealed. That's not given to me. We'll
know when the Lord's coming after he comes and then we'll be able
to look back and say, Oh, that's what that prophecy means. And
this is almost universally true concerning things that the Lord
does. We just don't know what the Lord's will is in our lives
and the things that you're going through, you know, in the past
or right now, things that are happening. We just can't say,
oh, I know what the Lord's will is there. Because we just don't
know what the Lord's doing until he's already done it. I mean,
we may think we have some idea, but I'm telling you, we don't
know what the Lord's doing until he's already done it. And even
after he's done it, the far reaching effects of things that we don't
even know about, you know, what, what the Lord's done there. We
just don't know. We're not going to know what,
what the Lord's purpose was in many events of our lives until
this thing is said and done and we look back on it in glory.
So don't get too caught up in this matter of prophecy. You
know, we just can't know. We're just, we're never going
to build because our Lord said, so we're not going to be able
to figure out the timing of his second coming. And in verse three
here in our text, the disciples ask at the end of the verse,
what should be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the
world. Now I'm not being hard on these,
on the disciples cause we do the same thing as you know, but
the question, when shall these things be really shows an error
of heart. and an error of attitude and
curiosity. We ought to be much more concerned
with who rather than when. We should be concerned about
who's coming, not when he's coming. We should be concerned about
knowing the judge of all the earth instead of knowing when
that judgment will take place. Because if you know the judge
and the judge knows you, you've got nothing to worry about in
judgment. If we know the who, The win, it's just not gonna
matter. And whenever the Lord accomplishes His will and His
purpose, that's fine with everybody that knows Him and trusts Him.
Here's the second thing about prophecy. I understand people
get hung up on prophecy. They wanna know what's gonna
happen before it happens. But this is what I know about
prophecy. Since we can't know what the Lord's getting ready
to do, what His will and purpose is and all of these things, I
tell you what we ought to do. We ought to focus on today. not
prophecy of events of the future. I don't know what's going to
happen in the future. When these things are, I mean, I know the
world's going to end. I know the Lord's coming back, but I
don't know when. I don't know when those things are going to
come to pass, but this is what I do know. I do know what I should
do today. I know what I should do today. Today, right at this very moment,
we're commanded to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't know when he's coming, but I know I'm commanded to believe
him right now. Today, we're commanded to look to Christ, to rest in
Him. I don't know when He's coming,
but I know how to rest in Him. I'm commanded to do that right
now. And what the Lord's given us to do today, it's enough to
occupy our time, rather than worry about what He's gonna do
in the future. The Lord will take care of those things, and
when those things are gonna happen. He's given us enough to do to
occupy our time today, looking to Him, trusting Him, believing
Him, seeking Him, And there's, I think there's seven different
prophecies in this chapter. We'll just look at the first
one today. I don't know how long it'll take
us to get through the chapter, but the first thing I want to look at
is the prophecy of these stones being thrown down. Verse one,
chapter 24, Matthew. And Jesus went out and departed
from the temple, and his disciples came to him for to show him the
buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, see
ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there
should not be left here one stone upon another that should not
be thrown down. Now, all of you know very well,
at least we've been told this, that we cannot judge God's blessings
by earthly things, physical earthly things that he's given us. I'm
very happy when we can enjoy nice things and enjoyable things,
you know, in this life. And if we have those things,
God gave them to us, didn't he? We know that. But those things
are temporary blessings. Those things that we have of
this life, that we try to gather up and we're gonna, and just,
you know, are so important to us, they're coming today real
soon that one stone's not gonna be left upon another. God's gonna
throw them all down. He's gonna burn them all up.
Those things are just temporary blessings. They're not God's
true blessings to his people. riches and other things of this
life. They are no indication, no indication
of God's spiritual blessing in the hearts of his people. I'll
give you a couple examples. Let me ask you, who was blessed? The rich man who fared sumptuously
in this life and everything his heart could desire? Or Lazarus
who was laying there begging at his gate so sick the dogs
were licking his sores? Who was the blessed man? Get
in your mind's eye of the day that the Apostle Paul stood and
preached to Festus and Felix. There's the Apostle Paul in chains.
There's Festus and Felix up there in their luxury box. Who's the
blessed man? Who's blessed? And the Jews,
they looked at the temple as a sign of God's blessing. on
them that that building and all. I mean, I guess they still do.
That's why people make such a big deal of it, but just the wailing
wall, part of the wall is left in the temple and things, you
know, they still do. The disciples were mighty impressed
with that building, weren't they? That's why they wanted to look
at it and show it, show it to the Lord. But I'm telling you,
there's nothing left of that building to be impressed with
today. And on this day that we're looking
at here, just days before our Lord's crucifixion, when, when
he left the temple and the Lord and the disciples wanted to show
the Lord this already, there was nothing left of that building
to be impressed with already. Now, first of all, this is not
Solomon's temple. You know, the, the, you just,
we read about the, the, the temple, the, the architecture, the riches
of the Solomon mill. But now this is not Solomon's
temple. The Babylonians destroyed much of that temple. much of
it. And they, they took all the gold and the silver and the riches
and things out of it. And then that happened 600 years
or more prior to, to this day that we're looking at in our
text. And some of those stones were left. Some of those stones
that Solomon had, you know, put in place, they were left, but
this was a rebuild of that temple. And it was, it was much smaller
and it did not include all the riches and things of Solomon's
temple. This is a temple that Herod rebuilt.
Now, in this day, when our Lord left the temple, his disciples
want to show him the building and the architecture of it. They
already did not have the constantly burning fire in the brazen altar
for the sacrifices anymore. That had been done away with.
They didn't have that. They didn't have the Ark of the Covenant
anymore. They didn't have the Ark. They didn't have the mercy
seat. There was no Shekinah glory of God dwelling in that building
between the wings of the cherubim. And the sad thing is, is the
people didn't even know it. You know one of the things that
they discovered when Christ died and the veil of the temple was
rent into? There's no ark. There's no mercy seat, and the
people didn't know it. The priests had been going in
there for however long, hundreds of years maybe, pretend on the
day of atonement, and they just told the people, I sprinkled
blood on the mercy seat. And they didn't, because there
was no mercy seat. The Babylonians took it. Maybe they melted it
down for the gold. I don't know, but it wasn't there
anymore. All the glory of that building was gone. Now, if you
want, you can turn to Haggai chapter two. If you have the
authorized version, that's page 1168. It's right between Zephaniah
and Zachariah and Haggai gave us a prophecy. of this very thing, the glory
of the second temple is gone. It's gone. Haggai two verse nine. And this is a very interesting
thing. I've never seen this before,
but this is, this is a real blessing. The glory of this ladder house
shall be greater than of the former, sayeth the Lord of hosts.
And in this place will I give peace, sayeth the Lord of hosts.
The glory of the latter, the glory of the second temple that
Herod built shall be greater than the former, shall be greater
than the first one, the one that Solomon built. Now, how can he
say that? How could that prophecy ever
come true that if the ark and the mercy seat and the kind of
glory of God was gone. All the gold and the silver,
all that was gone. How can you say the glory of
the second temple is greater than Solomon's that had all that
stuff? How's that possible? You know why? The son of God
came to the second one. That's why. Look up at verse
six if you're still there in Haggai two. For thus sayeth the
Lord of hosts, yet once, it's a little while, And I'll shake
the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. I'll
shake all nations and the desire of nations shall come. When Christ
came, it shook the whole earth that affected the whole earth.
And I'll fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. When Christ came, now glory is
inability. Christ came to that second temple,
God in the flesh, the fulfillment of that veil that separated the
holy of holies. The fulfillment of it has come.
The fulfillment of the mercy seat, the propitiation himself,
has come to the second temple. God, the light of the world,
that's a picture of that candlestick. The fulfillment of that candlestick,
Christ, the light of the world, has come. God in the flesh has
come as the fulfillment of that brazen altar, come to offer the
sacrifice that will put away sin. You're not gonna have to
offer them all the time. His one sacrifice for sin. Put
away the sin of His people forever. And that makes the glory of the
second greater than the glory of the first. Now, back in Matthew,
take note of what has just happened here. The Lord just walked out
of that second temple for the last time. He'll never come back
to it. The glory of it just left. The
glory of it just left. It doesn't matter the size of
the building. It doesn't matter the architecture of the building.
It doesn't matter the size of the stones and we just can't
even quite figure out how in this world they get those stones
there, you know. It doesn't matter because the glory is gone. All the religion that takes place
in that building, all the religious ceremonies that take place in
that building is no good anymore. In just a few days, they're gonna
sacrifice a lamb, a Passover lamb in this building. It won't
matter anymore because Christ our Passover is being sacrificed
for us at that very moment they're killing that lamb. Look back up in chapter five.
Look what the Lord says, verse 38. Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate. There's no glory, there's no
you anymore because I've left it. For I say unto you, you should
not see me henceforth To you shall say, blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord. He's not coming back to this
place until he comes a second time. The use of that building
is gone. And I try to think, wonder how
the Savior looked at that building when he walked out of it. Have
you ever walked out of a place and you know, I'm walking out
of this place for the last time? And you just kind of look around
a little bit. Wonder if the Lord did that. Wonder how he would
have felt. He knows he's walking out of
this building for the last time. Wonder how he felt about that.
That building was built and meant to be a house of prayer. House
of worship. And maybe it was at one time,
but not anymore. It's just ceremony. There's no worship of God. There's
no prayer to God. And they don't even know God
anymore. All their trust is the ceremonies. That building is
supposed to be his father's house. It's not his father's house anymore.
It's just a den of thieves. It used to look like a very impressive
building. But now, if you had eyes to see
it, it just looked kind of small and insignificant and lifeless. And I'll tell you why it looked
that way, because life himself left it. It's just like the human
body. After the life leaves that body. That body, it's the same body
that was there just a minute ago that had life in it, but
I mean immediately when the life leaves that body, suddenly that
body just looks smaller. It looks less impressive. It's because life has left it.
That's what happened to that building. Life himself just left
it. And that building is desolate.
It's desolate of being able to do any good for anybody. Now
for a time, God had used the Jews. He'd used the worship in
that building. He used the ceremonies in that
building. He used the whole Jewish nation as a picture. All that
they ever were is a picture of God's elect, spiritual Israel.
And now Christ has walked out of that building for the last
time and God's purpose in all of that nation Israel is over. It's done. God's now done with
the types. He's done with the pictures of
Christ. He's done with the laws. He's done with the ceremony.
He's done with all those external things. And you know why? The fulfillment of them all has
come. See, now we have Christ, not
the picture. Now we worship Christ himself
by faith. Not the types, not the ceremonies.
Christ himself, the picture is over. And I know that those things
used to be impressive at one time, but they're desolate now.
They're no use anymore. I used this example recently.
I was preaching somewhere else and I thought of this story,
true story. When I was 12, 13 years old, I got me a girlfriend, Janet. She went to a different school
than me. She went to South Point. I went
to Williamsburg. And she was a cheerleader. She
gave me a picture of her in her cheerleader outfit. I still have
it. I took that picture. I put that
picture in my wallet. I didn't have anything in my wallet. I
mean, I didn't have a driver's license. I didn't have no money. I didn't
have nothing in my wallet. But I did have that picture. And
buddy, it didn't take much for me to be in a conversation with
somebody. I'd tell them about my girlfriend. And I pull out
my billfold and said, you want to see a picture? I showed my friends that picture.
This is a true story. I showed that picture to a couple
of my buddies. We were playing basketball. And
I showed them a picture of that. And one of them just said, that's
not your girlfriend. You just found that picture.
That is not your girlfriend. I mean, I looked at that picture
all the time. But you know, there was one time I did not look at
that picture at all. I was with her. I didn't want
the picture then. I had the real person. And that's this thing. Those
types and those ceremonies, they were important when God instituted
them. They were important. This is the way to worship God.
And they were important only because they were a picture of
Christ. They weren't important because they put away sin. They
weren't important because it made anybody righteous. They
weren't important because anybody found those things could make
themselves pleasing to God. They were only any good as a
way to worship because they were a picture of Christ. Now brethren,
the fulfillment's come. It's time to put the picture
away. And that's what God's doing with that. And he's, he's done
using this building. He's done using the things that
went on in that building anymore. And just to make sure, this is
obvious to everybody, about 30 to 35 years after the Lord walked
out of this building and said, your house is left to you desolate,
that temple was destroyed. You know how the Jews were. Boy,
they were just trying to be a thorn in Rome's side all the time.
And Rome finally had enough of it. And they sent a general named
Titus. And he came. He besieged the
city for a pretty good while, years, I think. In the end, he
broke into the city with his army and the temple was completely
destroyed. And I read this this week that
Titus saw the temple on fire. It was a small fire at the time.
It still could have been put out. The building could have
been saved. And he thought, I want to save this building. I don't
want this building to be destroyed. But his men were so bloodthirsty. They were so bent on destruction. He couldn't stop them. And they
destroyed the temple. And whatever might have been
left of it was destroyed by an earthquake about 300 years later.
There wasn't one stone left upon another. Physically and spiritually. In Israel, there's not one stone
left upon another. Now that's part of Jewish history. And we see that prophecy, we
understand it, because it's already happened. But you know, this
is also a prophecy concerning this creation, the end of the
world when God comes again. When Christ returns, He's going
to burn up everything in His creation. He's going to pull
it all down. There won't be one stone left upon another. I'll
tell you what that tells me. Don't put any confidence in the
things of this world, in the material things of this world. Use them. Enjoy them as God gives
them to you, but don't let them use you. Don't let them control
you. Just remember this now. God's
going to burn this all up. And he's going to create a new
heaven, a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. And the only things
that are going to be in that new creation are things in Christ. The only thing that would be
in that new creation are things that when God creates them anew. Now,
since that is a certain end of this earth, I'm telling you,
seek Christ. Don't seek things, seek Christ. Because very soon, all these
things that we get so caught up in, they're going to be gone.
There won't be one stone left upon another. Now that's what
happened in Jewish history. That's what's gonna happen at
the end of the history of this world when Christ returns. But
I wanna show you one more thing. There's a spiritual application
to this that applies to us today. There's something you can take
home and think about today. There's something you can put in your
lunch bucket and take to work with you tomorrow. It's concerning us trying to
build something by our religious works, by our morality, and our
strict, straight doctrinal stance on everything. Man by nature
cannot help but do this. It's just in the nature of man.
Just like we naturally breathe, a living human being has this
nature in them that tries to build themselves a spiritual
house. They try to build themselves
a refuge against the coming storm of God's wrath against sin. Buddy,
you tell me Christ is coming, He's gonna burn everything up,
I'm gonna get busy building me a shelter, aren't you? And if
left to themselves, this is what the flesh will always build.
They'll always build on the sand of man's works. They'll never
build on Christ the solid rock. They'll always build on the sands
of man's works. And when we build a building
like that, a spiritual building, a refuge that we think we can
hide in, some sort of religious structure that's gonna impress
men around us very shortly. There won't be one stone left
upon another, not one. Look at Isaiah chapter 28. These
religious houses and these outward religious veneers, I'm done with them. I mean, I'm
so done with that. They might look impressive to
men for a little bit, You know, the person that built them, they
got what they wanted. They got men to be impressed
with them. But very shortly, very shortly, there won't be
one stone left upon another. God's going to cast them down. Isaiah 28, verse 15. Because
you have said, we've made a covenant with death, and with hell are
we at agreement. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, it shall not come unto us, for we made
lies our refuge. And under falsehood, have we
hid ourselves? They're saying, look at the stones
of my work that built this house. I built a refuge. Look at the
stones of it. It's so impressive, but God's going to cast them
all down. Verse 17 judgment also will I lay to the line and righteousness
to the plummet and hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies
and the water shall overflow the hiding place and your covenant
with death should be disannulled. Your agreement with hell should
not stand when the overflowing scourge shall pass through Then
you should be trodden down by it. When the overflowing scourge
of God's wrath passes through, God's gonna cast down the refuge
of works, the refuge of man's works, the refuge of man's religion
and ceremonies, and there's not gonna be one stone left upon
another. He's gonna wipe it out. Well,
that's pretty sobering, isn't it? That's pretty sobering. Well,
here's some good news. Here's some good news for God's
people, and this is a good place to end our lesson today. nothing
built on Christ will ever be cast down. A man's works, they'll
be cast down. There won't be one stone left
upon another, but nothing built on Christ will ever be cast down. Look at verse 16. Therefore,
thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion. Now you don't
lay this, you don't build this. God says, I lay in Zion for a
foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation. and he that believeth shall not
make haste. He that believeth in Christ,
he that trusteth in Christ, he's not gonna make haste. He's not
gonna have any worry. His shelter's secure. Christ,
our substitute, just like that ark that Noah was in, bore all
the wrath that God had for the sin of his people, and Christ
put it away. So there's no wrath left. Now
look, one more scripture. This is where we're in, 1 Peter
chapter two. You know, God's, God's temple. Here we're talking
about the building of the temple. Well, God has a temple and that
temple is God's people. Paul in one place talked about,
you know, you're the temple of God because you're the place
where God dwells. God dwells in the hearts of his
people and that makes you the temple of God. Well, the temple
that Solomon built in a fall down. One stone won't be left
upon another. Herod rebuilt it. It won't last. One stone won't be left upon
another. But God's never going to allow any damage to his temple. Not one stone is gonna fall out
of place. Not one. There won't be one stone
lost. There's not gonna be one chink.
There's not gonna be one hole in God's building. It's gonna
be perfect. It's perfect. And you know why?
God will never leave or forsake his people. He left that second
temple and deserted it, didn't he? If Christ dwells in you,
that'll never happen to you. He'll never leave you desolate.
God will never allow anyone that Christ bought with his precious
blood to perish. Now there's coming a day when
there's not one stone of man's works left upon another, but
all of God's living stones are gonna be perfectly, securely
in their place, right where God put them. Look at 1 Peter 2 verse
5. Ye also, as lively stones, living
stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And here Peter's telling us what
this means that we just read in Isaiah 28. Wherefore, this
is why also is contained in scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone. elect, precious, and he that
believeth on him shall not be confounded. He that believeth
on him shall not be found guilty. He that believeth on Christ shall
never be found guilty and cast into hell because Christ has
already bore God's wrath against their sin. Now, if we built a
spiritual refuge of righteousness, not one stone will be left upon
another. But if Christ has built us up on Him, on Him, the chief
foundation, the cornerstone, will never be cast down. All
those stones, God's people, He's made them living stones. He's
built them up a spiritual house. This is not a house that made
with hands. This is a spiritual house. And
not one of those stones will ever be lost. Not one of them
will ever be cast down. Well, as long as that's true,
I don't care when Christ returns, do you? Whenever He returns,
it's just fine by me. As long as we're looking for
Him, not something else. All right, well, hope the Lord
bless that to you.