Apr. 21, 2024

Jesus has just left the Temple never to return, sits on the Mount of Olives and delivers Hs Olivet Discourse in which we find many prophecies about end-times. He explains the implications of the destruction of the Temple.

Matthew Lesson 40 Study Questions

1.    Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple: Jesus would _________ no more with the religious leaders, and never again come to the temple in His _________ ministry. With emphasis, He went out and departed.

2.    Do you not see all these things? The disciples wanted Jesus to look at the beautiful __________; Jesus told them to turn around and take a good look at those _________. Not one stone shall be left here upon another.

3.    As He sat on the Mount of Olives: Removed from the temple, yet overlooking it, the disciples asked Jesus questions about His bold prediction concerning the destruction of the temple. When will these things be? Jesus said the temple would be completely destroyed. It was _______ that the disciples wanted to know when it would happen. Jesus will speak to this question, but only in the ________ of answering their next two questions.

4.    And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age? As Jesus answers this important second question, He will make many specific ________ and predictions about the end times. These predictions have been the source of significant disagreement among Christians who have tried to understand them. Though some prophetic interpretations are different, we are sure of this: He is ______ again, and we must be _______.

5.    Take heed that no one deceives you: From the outset, Jesus warned the disciples that many would be __________ as they anticipated His return. There have been times in the history of the church when rash ___________ were made and then relied upon resulting in great disappointment, disillusionment, and falling way.

6.    See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet: The kind of things Jesus mentions in this section are not the things that mark _________ signs of the end. Things like false messiahs, wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes have certainly marked man’s history since the time of Jesus’ Ascension – but were not specific signs of the end. In effect Jesus said, “Catastrophes will happen, but these will not ________ the end.”

7.    All these are the beginning of sorrows: Though none of those events are the specific sign of the end, ___________ they are a sign. When Jesus described these calamities as the beginning of sorrows, He literally called them the beginning of labor pains. Just as is true with labor pains, we should expect that the things mentioned – wars, famines, earthquakes, and so on – would become more __________ and more _________ before the return of Jesus

8.    They will deliver you to tribulation and kill you: In the period after Jesus ascends to heaven and _______ He comes again, His disciples should expect to be ____________.

9.    False prophets will arise and deceive many: In the period after Jesus ascends to heaven and before He ______ again, the disciples of Jesus will see many _______ prophets, and their success. 

10.    Lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold: In the period after Jesus ascends to heaven and _______ He comes again, His disciples should expect to see society become ______ and ______. But this also is not the specific sign of His return.

11.    This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come: Jesus also promised that before the end, the ______ would go out to the _______ world. 

12.    Taking these passages in their most plain meaning, the abomination of desolation cannot be the ______ _______ or the ensigns they marched under; it cannot be totalitarian ____________ or any other conjecture. The abomination of desolation must be some kind of image of the ___________ set in an actual temple, and is the decisive sign for the end.