Day 189: The Temple Prophesy

Luke 21:5-6

As some were talking about the temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts, he said, “As for these things which you see, the days will come, in which there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.”

This passage makes it clear that Jesus was very sober minded about the coming destruction of Jerusalem. As the people were enjoying the wonder of the temple, Jesus was sorrowfull about the fact that it would soon be completely destroyed by Rome. As we read earlier, Jesus had wept over Jerusalem because they failed to recognize the time of their visitation by the Messiah and that horrible things were going to happen as a result. It is easy to see how some might have thought that Jesus was just a person who couldn’t enjoy life. When we, as Christians, know the truth about the sin of mankind and the coming destruction of the world, we may get treated this way too. The truth was that Jerusalem was about to see a horrible slaughter of men, women and children and Jesus was was upset about it.

We now know that Jerusalem was destroyed along with the temple. In fact, the whole temple was torn apart, stone-by-stone. I have been told that the reason that the temple was completely torn down was because a fire broke out during the siege and melted the gold of the temple into the cracks between the stones. In order to get the gold, the stones had to be taken apart.

Biblical Interpretation: Literal prophesies like these, make it very reasonable to believe that the Bible is a literal book rather than merely a book of myths or meaningful stories. Jesus said that the temple would be completely torn down and it was. Many scholars simply assume that that certain parts of recorded history in the Bible are myths. Rather than questioning their own anti-supernatural beliefs, they choose to question the Holy Bible. This is an example of human pride, not an example of careful scholarship.