Four disciples ask one question on a hillside overlooking the temple — when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming? — and Jesus answers with a single discourse that describes two events at once, Jerusalem’s own fall forty years off and a second coming still future to every reader of this page, woven together so closely that the line between them only becomes visible in hindsight.
A study in Matthew 24 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 34 min read
There Shall Not Be Left Here One Stone Upon Another
“And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”
Matthew 24:1-3
This site’s own study of Matthew 23 closed with Jesus leaving the temple for the last time, calling it desolate. The disciples’ question that follows is really two questions at once — when will the temple fall, and when will You come again — and Jesus does not answer them one at a time.
“Jesus did not answer His disciples by taking up separately the destruction of Jerusalem and the great day of His coming. He mingled the description of these two events. Had He opened to His disciples future events as He beheld them, they would have been unable to endure the sight. In mercy to them He blended the description of the two great crises, leaving the disciples to study out the meaning for themselves. When He referred to the destruction of Jerusalem, His prophetic words reached beyond that event to the final conflagration in that day when the Lord shall rise out of His place to punish the world for their iniquity, when the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. This entire discourse was given, not for the disciples only, but for those who should live in the last scenes of this earth’s history.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 628
That framing is the key to the whole chapter: every sign that follows has a near fulfillment in the fall of Jerusalem and a farther one still to come. The first signs Jesus names are warnings against being deceived by counterfeits of both events.
“And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”
Matthew 24:4-8
“Many false messiahs will appear, claiming to work miracles, and declaring that the time of the deliverance of the Jewish nation has come. These will mislead many. … But this warning was given also to those who live in this age of the world. The same deceptions practiced prior to the destruction of Jerusalem have been practiced through the ages, and will be practiced again.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 628
Wars and rumors of wars, Jesus warns, are not themselves the sign — only the beginning of sorrows, the labor pains of a much longer age still to unfold.
This Gospel Of The Kingdom Shall Be Preached In All The World
“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”
Matthew 24:9-11
“So it will be again. The authorities will make laws to restrict religious liberty. They will assume the right that is God’s alone. They will think they can force the conscience, which God alone should control. Even now they are making a beginning; this work they will continue to carry forward till they reach a boundary over which they cannot step. God will interpose in behalf of His loyal, commandment-keeping people.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 630
The persecution that scattered the apostolic church, White argues, is a pattern that repeats, not a closed chapter of ancient history — a warning aimed as much at the last generation as at the first.
“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
Matthew 24:12-14
“This prophecy will again be fulfilled. The abounding iniquity of that day finds its counterpart in this generation. So with the prediction in regard to the preaching of the gospel. Before the fall of Jerusalem, Paul, writing by the Holy Spirit, declared that the gospel was preached to ‘every creature which is under heaven.’ … Christ tells us when that day shall be ushered in. He does not say that all the world will be converted, but that ‘this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.’ By giving the gospel to the world it is in our power to hasten our Lord’s return.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 633
The end is not simply something that happens to the world; by this reading it is, in part, something the church’s own faithfulness helps bring about.
When Ye Therefore Shall See The Abomination Of Desolation
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:”
Matthew 24:15-20
“Christ gave His disciples a sign of the ruin to come on Jerusalem, and He told them how to escape: ‘When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.’ This warning was given to be heeded forty years after, at the destruction of Jerusalem. The Christians obeyed the warning, and not a Christian perished in the fall of the city.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 630
Luke’s own parallel account of this same discourse supplies the plain-language version of Daniel’s own cryptic phrase — armies surrounding the city was the abomination of desolation, in terms any first-century reader could act on immediately. The instruction to pray about the timing of that flight carries its own weight.
“‘Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter; neither on the Sabbath day,’ Christ said. He who made the Sabbath did not abolish it, nailing it to His cross. The Sabbath was not rendered null and void by His death.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 630
A command to pray against fleeing on the Sabbath only makes sense if the Sabbath was still binding forty years after the cross — a detail easy to read past, and one this site’s own doctrinal commitments will not let pass unremarked.
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”
Matthew 24:21-22
“‘Then shall be great tribulation,’ He said, ‘such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.’ … For more than a thousand years such persecution as the world had never before known was to come upon Christ’s followers. Millions upon millions of His faithful witnesses were to be slain. Had not God’s hand been stretched out to preserve His people, all would have perished.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 630
Jerusalem’s own siege gives the near fulfillment of this verse; the centuries of martyrdom that followed give the far one — the same verse describing two different tribulations, exactly as this whole discourse has been doing from its opening sentence.
As The Lightning Cometh Out Of The East
“Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”
Matthew 24:23-28
“But this prophecy was spoken also for the last days. This sign is given as a sign of the second advent. Even now false christs and false prophets are showing signs and wonders to seduce His disciples. Do we not hear the cry, ‘Behold, He is in the desert’? Have not thousands gone forth into the desert, hoping to find Christ? And from thousands of gatherings where men profess to hold communion with departed spirits is not the call now heard, ‘Behold, He is in the secret chambers’? This is the very claim that spiritism puts forth.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 631
A secret, localized coming that only insiders can find is, by the terms of this very passage, disqualified from being the real one. Lightning does not need to be announced or sought out in a hidden room; it is visible from one end of the sky to the other the instant it happens, and that is the whole point of the comparison.
The Sign Of The Son Of Man In Heaven
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Matthew 24:29-31
“At the close of the great papal persecution, Christ declared, the sun should be darkened, and the moon should not give her light. Next, the stars should fall from heaven.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 632
This is the one place in the whole discourse where Jesus fixes a sequence, not merely a warning — the darkened sun and moon, then the falling stars, named as datable events this site’s own readers will recognize from the history of the 1780 Dark Day and the 1833 meteor shower, both read by the generation that lived through them as the fulfillment of exactly this verse.
“Christ is coming with clouds and with great glory. A multitude of shining angels will attend Him. He will come to raise the dead, and to change the living saints from glory to glory. He will come to honor those who have loved Him, and kept His commandments, and to take them to Himself.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 632
Every previous sign in this chapter could, in principle, be misread or counterfeited; this one cannot. No secret room or desert cave holds a coming visible to every tribe of the earth at once, escorted by angels and announced by a trumpet.
Learn A Parable Of The Fig Tree
“Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”
Matthew 24:32-36
“He says of those who see these signs, ‘This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.’ These signs have appeared. Now we know of a surety that the Lord’s coming is at hand. ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away,’ He says, ‘but My words shall not pass away.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 632
A budding fig tree does not announce the exact date of summer, only its unmistakable nearness — and Jesus deliberately pairs that same calibrated certainty with an equally deliberate silence about the day and hour themselves.
“But the day and the hour of His coming Christ has not revealed. He stated plainly to His disciples that He Himself could not make known the day or the hour of His second appearing. Had He been at liberty to reveal this, why need He have exhorted them to maintain an attitude of constant expectancy? There are those who claim to know the very day and hour of our Lord’s appearing. Very earnest are they in mapping out the future. But the Lord has warned them off the ground they occupy. The exact time of the second coming of the Son of man is God’s mystery.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 632
The signs are given so believers can recognize the season; the date is withheld so no one can substitute a calculation for the watching itself.
As The Days Of Noe Were
“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.”
Matthew 24:37-41
“How was it in Noah’s day? ‘God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.’ … The inhabitants of the antediluvian world turned from Jehovah, refusing to do His holy will. They followed their own unholy imagination and perverted ideas. It was because of their wickedness that they were destroyed; and today the world is following the same way.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 633
Noah’s own generation was not oblivious to danger because the danger was hidden; it was oblivious because ordinary life — eating, drinking, marrying — felt too urgent and too normal to interrupt for a warning that had not yet come true.
“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
Matthew 24:42-44
“Because we know not the exact time of His coming, we are commanded to watch. ‘Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching.’ … Those who watch for the Lord’s coming are not waiting in idle expectancy. The expectation of Christ’s coming is to make men fear the Lord, and fear His judgments upon transgression.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 634
Watching, in this discourse’s own vocabulary, is never passive. The parable that closes the chapter draws the line between the two kinds of servant as sharply as anywhere in the Gospels.
“Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew 24:45-51
Both servants were given the exact same uncertainty about the hour; only one of them let that uncertainty turn into faithfulness instead of into an excuse. The whole discourse that began with a question about timing ends, fittingly, not with a date but with a description of the only kind of readiness that was ever going to matter.
