Imagine being at your favorite restaurant, ordering your favorite dish. It arrives at your table, the steam still rising, the smell filling the air with a familiar aroma which makes you salivate with expectation. You cannot wait to take a bite, but just before you do, you overhear another customer on a table near you say that they just saw the chef leave the bathroom without washing their hands. How quickly our expectations can be crushed! Many times, people have bought something they believed was a great product only to find that it doesn’t really make their life better, is of poor quality, or some other disappointment. No one enjoys the feeling of disappointment, not even God.

How unfathomable it must have been for the disciples to hear that the temple that was located in God’s chosen city, among the chosen people, would come to ruin. The Israelite leaders in Christ’s day claimed that they had and lived the truth, worshiped the only true God, and were favored above all others in the world, while at the same time they planned the death of the One whom they were supposed to serve. They failed to live up to their calling, and Jesus, in deep sorrow, shed tears; not for the building, but for the people. How could their hearts be so hardened in darkness when the Light of the world was literally in their midst?

There are several aspects that are worth highlighting. First, Jesus saw, in Jerusalem, a type of what the world will become, hardened in unbelief and rebellion. The religious leaders of Christ’s time, however, did not become hardened overnight. It was a process. And it serves as a reminder for us not to travel down the same road. Little decisions in the wrong direction (perhaps even for good/sincere reasons at first), lead to bigger decisions in the same direction, and before you know it, one’s ability to discern between light and darkness, truth and error, has greatly diminished. This is why there is no substitute for personal Bible study. Going back to the Bible again and again is the only safeguard against the subtle deceptions of Satan, who constantly wants us to travel on the wide road that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13). It is important to be honest with ourselves, both as individuals and as a church body, and ask the question, “am I/we submitting to the will of God, and to the Bible?” Or are we twisting it to suit our own purposes, as the leaders of Christ’s day did? Submission is not a popular word in society today, and yet the Bible appeals to the faithful to submit constantly to God (James 4:7).  

Second, this was not the destiny that God had intended for Israel. God wanted to bless Israel, to have them as a city on a hill, a light to the world, to hold them even closer than a hen holds her chicks. But they were unwilling (Matt. 23:37). Think about this: Jesus spoke the universe into existence, He formed our world and all of the life on it in just seven days, and yet He could not save Jerusalem from its doom. It is not that God cannot force the will of His creatures—it’s that He won’t. Scripture tells us that God respects our decisions even when they are the wrong ones, and we do have the ability to do otherwise than what God would have us to do. What we see in this scene between Jesus and the temple is a picture of omnipotence feeling helpless. This happens many times in Scripture, and yet God asks, “What more could I have done, that I have not tried?” (Isa. 5). How often in our own lives do we give God the feeling of helplessness? Praise God He does not abandon us, but pursues us still, and speaks to us with that still small voice to turn to Him for He can abundantly pardon (Isa. 55:7).

Third, the destruction of Jerusalem would prefigure the terrors of the last day. Humanity left to itself is not a pretty picture. Many in today’s world assume that people, deep down in their core, are genuinely good. But remove all the basic necessities of life, and that desperately wicked heart will reveal itself, unless surrendered to Christ (Jer. 17:9). The great sin which God’s people committed in that first century was their rejection of the person of Christ. In our day, the great sin is the rejection of the law of God, the very character of Christ. We reject Christ when we entertain the notion that Christ is not who He says He is, as revealed in Scripture, but what I would like Him to be. Anyone who claims that a created being has the prerogative to decide which aspects of their creator are important and which are not, is surely using faulty reasoning. This is the very definition of idolatry, forming a God after our image.   

Jesus’ prediction of the fall of Jerusalem and the temple has strong similarities to the prediction of the flood by Noah, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by Lot, in that at the time of the warning no one thought it was possible that such a thing would happen. In fact, Jesus, Noah, and Lot might have been categorized as “alarmists” or “crazy” just for saying such things. Those who live at the end of time, in giving the final warning to the world, will likewise bear pejorative titles. But for those whose hearts are open, none need perish in the destruction to come. All we have to do is look for the signs and obey the warning.

It is important to note that when persecution was running rampant in the early centuries its purpose was to stamp out the truth. It was a war against the truth. As such it was not a respecter of classes of people. It did not matter if you were rich or poor, if you had a high position or none at all, if you were a man or woman, free or slave, educated or not. If you believed that Christ was Lord and Savior you were an enemy, and if caught, the sentence was death. Your only safety was in Jesus, not in any human effort, and this will be the only safety at the end of time.

Persecution has its beginning in falsely accusing or slandering a person or group, so as to represent them as an enemy, and thus justify their punishment. No one enjoys the feeling of being misunderstood and misrepresented, particularly when the stakes may be extremely high. And yet, how often are we careful when we speak of others? How often do we believe mere rumor and spread it around? When speaking of others, we must take great care to speak of them the way we would wish they would speak of us. This is part of the golden rule. If we do not, we may be contributing to undue persecution which may arise toward them sometime in the future. Even if we would not necessarily perform any kind of persecution against a particular person or group, we may unknowingly be enabling or encouraging others to do it.

Another important aspect that arises out of an environment of persecution is how God’s work was able to move forward among so much death and leadership turnover. The work of God moved forward, because it was God’s work, not humanity’s. While many perished, others rose up to fill their places, “the blood of the martyrs was seed.” This teaches us an important principle which we may often forget: the work of God is not dependent on me. Please do not misunderstand, I do believe that God “wants” me to be involved in His mission, and even believe that God may “need” me in order to accomplish specific things according to His plan that He may not be able to accomplish through someone else. But what I do not believe is that should I perish the church of God would perish with me. God is bigger than we can imagine, and His work much larger than any one person.

It is often in our nature to see ourselves as more significant than we actually are. Elijah thought as much and had to be kindly rebuked when God mentioned that He still had seven thousand who had not bowed the knee (1 Kings 19:18). I firmly believe that should every pastor in our church, and every educator and administrator in our church perish overnight (God forbid!), the work of God would still move forward. For this reason, we ought never to feel as though the success of the work rests exclusively upon our shoulders alone.

Satan has been far more successful from within the church than from without. While persecution was high, the church remained pure, but as soon as it stopped, the converts were less sincere and devoted. Little by little small compromises were made which eventually led to treating great truths with indifference, rejecting the Bible as the standard of faith, and regarding the notion of religious freedom as heresy. This same kind of intolerance exists in places of the world today. The reason that persecution is not always as visible as it was in the first few centuries of the church is because of the great lack of godliness among God’s professed people. As we approach the end of time, and as the wheat and the tares mature, so that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, light and darkness become more apparent, it should not surprise us that there will be a revival of persecution. And if we are not speaking and doing good, in love, now, when conditions are favorable, how will we stand when conditions are unfavorable?

Perhaps the greatest impact this reading has had on me personally is the reminder that judgment and destruction fall on an ordinary day. I am sure that on this first day of the siege of Rome around Jerusalem, most citizens were in high spirits. But as time went on, the lack of food, and the realization that Rome will not leave settled in. I am also sure that many would have cried “if only I had known.” Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. But here is the irony—they should have known, for Jesus declared it to them. They simply chose not to believe Him. The flood came on an ordinary day; Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed on an ordinary night; the world ends while people are buying and selling, and marrying, and everything seems normal (Matt. 24:36-39). Faithfulness in little will lead to faithfulness in much. And when Jesus does return I want to be among the number whose testimony will be “here is the One I have waited for and trusted in” and not “if only I had known.”