hapter.

CHAPTER 32.

FURTHER INSTRUCTION TO THE APOSTLES.

PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND THE LORD'S
FUTURE ADVENT.[1150]

In the course of His last walk from Jerusalem back to the beloved home
at Bethany, Jesus rested at a convenient spot on the Mount of Olives,
from which the great city and the magnificent temple were to be seen in
fullest splendor, illumined by the declining sun in the late afternoon
of that eventful April day. As He sat in thoughtful revery He was
approached by Peter and James, John and Andrew, of the Twelve, and to
them certainly, though probably to all the apostles, He gave
instruction, embodying further prophecy concerning the future of
Jerusalem, Israel, and the world at large. His fateful prediction--that
of the temple buildings not one stone would be left upon another--had
caused the apostles to marvel and fear; so they came privately
requesting explanation. "Tell us," said they, "when shall these things
be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the
world?" The compound character of the question indicates an
understanding of the fact that the destruction of which the Lord had
spoken was to be apart from and precedent to the signs that were to
immediately herald His glorious advent and the yet later ushering in of
the consummation commonly spoken of then and now as "the end of the
world." An assumption that the events would follow in close succession
is implied by the form in which the question was put.

The inquiry referred specifically to time--when were these things to be?
The reply dealt not with dates, but with events; and the spirit of the
subsequent discourse was that of warning against misapprehension, and
admonition to ceaseless vigilance. "Take heed that no man deceive you"
was the first and all-important caution; for within the lives of most of
those apostles, many blaspheming imposters would arise, each claiming to
be the Messiah. The return of Christ to earth as Lord and Judge was more
remote than any of the Twelve realized. Before that glorious event, many
wonderful and appalling developments would be witnessed, among the
earliest of which would be wars and rumors of wars, caused by nation
rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, to the dread
accompaniment of famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in many places;
yet all these would be but the beginning of the sorrow or travail to
follow.

They, the apostles,