Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 10164. This generation will not pass away until all these things take place. That sentence, spoken by Jesus on the Mount of Olives, has been called the most difficult verse in the Gospels, and sceptics have used it for two centuries to argue that Jesus predicted his return within a few decades and was…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10163. The fig tree in Matthew 24 has carried more prophetic weight over the last seventy years than almost any other image in the Gospels, and I think it has been asked to carry rather more than it can bear. Jesus tells his disciples to learn a lesson from the fig tree, and a…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10087. The one taken one left saying in Matthew 24:40-41 must be among the most quoted prophetic verses in popular Christianity. It has been printed on bumper stickers, set to music and used as the backbone of novels and films. Almost everyone who quotes it assumes that being taken means being caught up to…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 10078. The Olivet Discourse is the sermon Jesus preached on the Mount of Olives during the last week of His earthly ministry, recorded in Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21. It is the longest block of teaching about the future that we have from His own lips, and everything else in…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10077. The birth pains Jesus mentions in Matthew 24 are the opening troubles of the end times: false messiahs, wars and rumours of wars, famines and earthquakes in various places. Having listed them He says, “All these are but the beginning of the birth pains” (Matthew 24:8). The image is deliberately chosen and it…