Olivet Discourse

The mundane life is a serious threat to Christian vitality. Christians often live as the unregenerate-i.e. numb to the reality of God's promises and program. Day by day routine by routine the Christian worldview is reduced to the pragmatics of being good and meeting the needs of another day. The focus becomes the reality of the present rather than the true reality of God's promises of things to come. Peter warned the believers in his day of skeptics who mocked the idea that there is a second coming. From their limited human perspective all things continue just as it has from the beginning of creation (2Peter 3:4). In contrast to non-Christians Scripture warns believers to not sleep as the unsaved and not be caught off guard by the events which lead to the Day of the Lord(1Thess. 5: 4-8). Even Christ's disciples felt some confusion related to future events because they assumed since the Lord had come (1st Advent) that God was about to establish His Israelite kingdom in the world. To their dismay Jesus instead predicts the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple (Mt. 23:37-38;24:1-2). In their confusion they asked Him for clarification and in response Jesus offered what is commonly known as the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24-25). The events of Matthew 24 and 25 are to remind believers that though we may not know the day and hour we do know that in God's pre-determined plan the world in which we live has a termination point.