The Olivet Discourse

Matthew 24:1-3

The return of Christ is one of the most important doctrines in the Bible. The story of Jesus is not complete without it. We have seen in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus is the King, the Son of David, who came in fulfillment of scripture. Throughout His ministry, He preached the Kingdom of Heaven, taught with the authority of God, and proved His identity as the Son of God. Since He arrived in Jerusalem in Matthew 21, we have seen Jesus in conflict with the religious leaders of the Jews. They reject Him as King and Messiah and He closes His final words in the temple pronouncing judgment their house. Now as we come toward the end of the Gospel, we will see Jesus crucified, and raised from the dead. We will see Him commission His disciples with all the authority of heaven and earth. In Acts, we see Jesus ascended into heaven and the epistles declare He sat down at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

But that is not the end of the story. The Bible declares that Jesus will return to earth. The story of Jesus and indeed the story of mankind and salvation history are not complete until Christ returns. The Old Testament is filled with prophecies of the coming of Christ—not just His first coming but also His second coming. There over 1,800 predictions of Christ’s second coming in the Old Testament. There are over 300 references to the second coming in the 260 chapters of the New Testament. One out of every thirty verses in the New Testament refers to the second coming of Christ[i].

And here in Matthew 24 and 25 Jesus gives us His extended teaching about His return. This is the fifth and final major teaching discourse of Jesus in Matthew. We already have heard Him teach the principles of the kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. He taught His disciples before sending them out to preach the kingdom in Matthew 10. In Matthew 13, Jesus taught the parables of the kingdom. In Matthew 18, He taught about kingdom relationships in the church. And now in Matthew 24-25 Jesus teaches His disciples about His second coming as King in power and glory. The passage is called “The Olivet Discourse” because it took place on the Mount of Olives (Matt. 24:3).

The key passage in Matthew 24 is where Jesus describes His second coming in Matthew 24:29-31,

29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matt. 24:29-31).

Now, before we dig into Matthew 24, I would like to take a few minutes to give you some principles that will govern our study. The study of the end times is called eschatology. It is a doctrine that is fraught with controversy and confusion. Scholars with conflicting views of eschatology find support for their arguments in Matthew 24.

Here is …

How we should approach eschatology:

  1. Christ-Centeredly. The Bible is all about Jesus. Revealing Himself to His eleven disciples after His resurrection, Jesus said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” (Luke 24:44). The Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the gospel of Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1). And all eschatology should be about Jesus. We must not get lost in the details of prophecy like the signs and the mark of the beast and miss the main thing—the promised return and reign of King Jesus. The way that Scripture teaches eschatology is much more like gazing upon a dazzling sunset than analyzing the chemical properties of the sun. It is more essential for us to have a grand and glorious view of Christ and His Kingdom than a technical, clinical understanding of the end times. A robust eschatology will drive us to worship Christ with joy, serve Christ with perseverance, and wait for Christ with hope.
  2. With Humility. Although I am confident in my interpretation of this passage and my understanding of end times prophecy, I recognize that it is possible that I might not have it all right. I am certainly no more intelligent or spiritual than other men who have studied this subject. Good and godly scholars and pastors have been mistaken about the end times in the past. This is the nature of prophecy. Although God has not been unclear or purposefully vague, we do not always understand it clearly until it happens. Think about how clear Jesus had been in prophesying about being betrayed, mocked, beaten, condemned, and crucified—yet His disciples did not fully understand it until after all these things actually happened to Him. Prophecy’s fulfillment is much easier to see after the fact than before it.
  3. Graciously. Not all Christians agree on everything concerning the end times. God does not give us end times prophecy so that we might contend with other Christians. Yes, I think you should know what you believe and why you believe it. Yes, we can amicably debate and advocate for our views. But we should not call everyone who holds a different view than ours a heretic. We should not mock or ridicule others for their views. Instead, we should celebrate what we hold in common and give grace where we disagree. Bible-believing Christians passionately agree about the most important matters. These are the things about which the scripture is very clear: That the Lord Jesus Christ will return personally, visibly, and victoriously to the earth. The dead will be raised, and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive the kingdom of heaven and will dwell with the Lord forever. Denying these Biblical truths would take you outside of sound doctrine.
  4. Literally (not allegorically). We will interpret Matthew 24 in context with the grammatical, historical, ordinary, literal sense. When the literal sense makes sense, we will not seek another sense. When symbols and figures of speech are used, we will understand them using sound grammatical and interpretive principles, comparing scripture with scripture. We will try to understand what the Bible says, not speculate about what it does not say or read into it what we already think.
  5. Sensibly. Some Christians are fanatical about biblical prophecy. Many more Christians try to ignore the subject entirely. Neither extreme promotes sound doctrine or godly living. We will not set dates. Jesus could not have been clearer: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” (Matt. 24:36). We will not obsess over current events, wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, or other things. We will not search the newspaper for signs of the times or consume ourselves with everything that happens in the modern state of Israel. This kind of fixation distracts us from the true purpose of biblical prophecy. We will not allow ourselves to be overly discouraged or enthused by world events. We will remember that our hope is in Christ.
  6. Practically. End times prophecy was not written just to satisfy our curiosity. This scripture was written for us to take heed, to watch, to be ready, and to turn to Christ. The disciples asked about dates and signs. But notice that Jesus does not really answer the question, “When will the end will come?” The real point that Jesus makes is “Will you endure to the end?” In Matthew 24, Jesus gives His disciples many exhortations: “Take heed that no one deceives you” (4); “See that you are not troubled” (6); “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (13); “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world” (14); “… do not believe … false christs and false prophets … See, I have told you beforehand” (23-25); “Watch therefore” (42); “Therefore you also be ready” (44); “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing” (46). A right understanding of eschatology should result in holy living under the Lordship of Christ.

Next, I want to briefly walk through Matthew 24:1-3. These three verses give us the setting for the Olivet Discourse. It begins with Jesus leaving the temple in Jerusalem for the last time. First, we see…

1. Jesus Predicts the Destruction of the Temple (Matt. 24:1-2).

Matthew 24:1 says, “Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple…” He did not enter it again after this point during His time on earth. And before He left the temple, He uttered the lament…

37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ “ (Matt. 23:37-39).

Imagine the grief that must have been in our Lord’s heart when He spoke those words. He was the long-awaited King of the Jews, their Promised Messiah. But when He had presented Himself to them, they rejected Him. And now, He was departing from them. They would not see Him again—not until the day comes when they will receive Him as their King at His second coming.

Matthew 24 needs to be understood in the light of that grievous, final departure from the temple. It describes, in part, what He meant when He said, “Your house is left to you desolate . . .” Just as the glory of God left the temple in Jerusalem in Ezekiel’s day (Eze. 10:18-19; 11:23) before it was destroyed by Babylon, Jesus, the glorious Messiah, leaves the temple to become desolate again.

With Jesus’ words of judgment still ringing in their ears, the disciples demonstrate that they clearly did not understand what Jesus meant. As they leave the temple Matthew 1:1 says, “… His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.” Mark records that one of the disciples said, “Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” (Mark 13:1).

The temple was truly an amazing sight. King Solomon had built the original temple 900 years before Christ. Because of Israel’s and Judah’s sin, God permitted Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to destroy it in 586 BC. After the Babylonian Captivity, the temple was rebuilt under Zerubbabel. But it was modest in comparison to the majesty of Solomon’s temple.

Herod the Great began a massive renovation and expansion of the temple in 20 BC. At the time of Jesus, the project was in progress for over forty years.  still not complete when it was destroyed. The massive complex covered thirty-five acres – one-sixth of Jerusalem. The massive stones and beautiful buildings were marvelous. Its surface was polished white; and its trims were pure gold. It was said that when the sun shone upon it, it sparkled like a jewel. The Jewish historian Josephus described the foundations of the temple as very large, saying that it was built on stones that were “white and strong”, and that some of them were the roughly forty feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high (Ant. 15.11.3). The sight of this temple was understandably overwhelming to anyone who stood before it.

Imagine how shocking it was then to the disciples when Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Matt. 24:2).

We know from history that Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by Roman armies under Titus in 70 AD. just as Jesus prophesied. MacArthur comments that the Romans “erected scaffolds around the walls of the temple and its buildings, filled them with wood and other flammable material, and set them on fire. The intense heat from the fires caused the stones to crumble. After it was further dismantled and sifted to find all the melted gold, the rubble was thrown down into the Kidron Valley. Only the huge foundation stones remained largely intact. Those stones, however, were not part of the Temple itself, but supports for the retaining wall.”[ii]

Jesus uses the strongest negative in the Greek language to say that “in no way” will there be left a stone upon a stone that will not be cast down. They saw the temple with its exquisite beauty and immense stones and wondered how in the world such a thing could possibly be! And so, having walked down from Jerusalem through the valley to the nearby Mount of Olives they asked Him about it.

2. The Disciples Question Jesus (Matt. 24:3).

3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

The disciples ask two questions: a when question, “when will these things be?”; and a what question, “what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”  The first question was inspired by the fact that our Lord said that the marvelous temple they were admiring would be destroyed. They wanted to know when these things would happen. To the disciples, the second question was integral to the first. They apparently thought that all three events, destruction of the Temple, the sign of Christ’s coming, and the end of the age would all occur at the same time. It is clear that in their minds all three were related and all would come to pass very quickly.

Dwight Pentecost explains that their “questions showed that they had arrived at certain conclusions…To these men Christ’s words concerning the destruction of Jerusalem was the destruction predicted by Zechariah that would precede the advent of the Messiah. In Jewish eschatology two ages were recognized: the first was this present age, the age in which Israel was waiting for the coming of the Messiah; the second was the age to come, the age in which all of Israel’s covenants would be fulfilled and Israel would enter into her promised blessings as a result of Messiah’s coming.”[iii]

Since Jesus the Messiah had come, they expected the consummation of the kingdom and all things to come to their end immediately. Jesus will correct their mistaken expectations. These things will not all happen immediately but over a long period of time. Many things would happen first and He teaches them that they must wait.

In the Olivet Discourse, starting in Matthew 24:4, Jesus answers these questions. Now, as I have said, this is a passage that needs to be handled with special care. There have been a wide diversity of interpretations of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. Some, for example, have suggested that He is speaking strictly of events that would happen in 70 A.D.; that is, of the time immediately in the future when both the city and its temple would be destroyed by the Romans. Other people suggest that He is speaking strictly of events in the far-distant future; that is, of a time when the dispersed Jewish people are back in their land, and when their temple is rebuilt, and when our Lord Jesus returns to this earth. Sometimes, the results of these interpretations have caused Christians a lot of confusion. And I certainly do not want to add further to the confusion.

My interpretation method for Matthew 24 is similar to what I taught when we studied the Olivet Discourse in Mark 13. I believe that our Lord addresses both the immediate situation of the destruction of the city and the temple and the distant future events surrounding His return and the end of the age. Theologians have sometimes referred to this as the “prophetic foreshortening”[iv] or “prophetic foreshadowing” view. Think about what it is like to look the Rocky Mountains from a distance. From your perspective—a ‘foreshortened’ perspective—it looks like one mountain with several peaks. In reality, each of the mountain peaks are separated by many miles by great valleys. Similarly, in “prophetic foreshortening”, great spaces of time may exist between some of the events being described; but they are being presented together in such a way that, from our perspective, it’s as if they were occurring within the same short time frame.

I also follow the principle of “prophetic foreshadowing”, that is that some prophetic events foreshadow the ultimate prophetic event. In this way, there may be a partial near-term, fulfillment of a prophecy and an ultimate end-time fulfillment of the same prophecy. I believe that the destruction of Jerusalem is a foreshadowing or a type of what will happen when Christ returns at the end of the age. This is why although the events of 70 AD seem to fulfill some of what Jesus prophesied, they do not fulfill it completely. What happened at the destruction of Jerusalem may illustrate what happens at Christ’s return, but it does not fulfill it.

I hope that all this will become more clear as we delve into Jesus’ answer starting next time. With that in mind, let me give you an outline of Matthew 24 and 25:

   1) Signs of Christ’s Coming (24:1-35)
   2) Readiness for Christ’s Coming (24:36-51)
   3) Waiting for Christ’s Coming (25:1-13)
   4) Preparing for Christ’s Coming (25:14-30)
   5) Judgment at Christ’s Coming (25:31-46)

Knowing all five of these aspects is essential for us as we await the second coming of our Lord. The important thing for us to remember today is that all these things, the ones that were fulfilled in the past and the ones that will be fulfilled in the future, find their significance and meaning in relationship to Jesus Christ. And so do we. Jesus told us these things so that we would know Him and trust Him and be ready for His return. Are you ready? Have you repented and believed on Jesus Christ?

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[i] H.B. Charles, Jesus Is Coming Again | Mark 13:24-27, https://hbcharlesjr.com/resource-library/sermon-outlines/jesus-is-coming-again-mark-1324-27/ accessed 9/13/2025.

[ii] John MacArthur, New Testament Commentary: Luke 18-24, Moody Publishers, 1988

[iii] Dwight Pentecost, The Words and Works of Jesus Christ: A Study of the Life of Christ, Grand Rapids, Mich. : Zondervan Pub. House, 1981, p. 398.

[iv] Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and The Future (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), p. 148-9.

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