In
Matthew chapters twenty-four and twenty-five, we have recorded the
great Olivet
Sermon preached by Jesus just hours before he was taken into captivity,
tried
and crucified for the sins of the world. The likelihood is more than
great that
there is no passage of Scripture outside the great Book of Revelation
that is
as badly maligned, abused, misunderstood and misinterpreted as the
words of our
gracious Lord in these chapters. While we would like to look in great
depth at
a number of matters in the Olivet Discourse, space permits us only to
look at
one matter in one verse. When Jesus was predicting the fall of
Jerusalem and
the destruction of the Temple, he said, “Assuredly, I say to you, this
generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place”
(Matthew
24:34 NKJV). For dozens of generations men have been reading this
passage of
Scripture and applying it to the generation in which they were living
rather
than the one in which Jesus was living. As a result of this
misapplication of
language, they have over and over again predicted the destruction of
the
universe before the end of the generation in which they were living at
the time
the prediction was made. This blunder has been repeated by every
generation of Premillennialists
since this false doctrine was popularized by John Nelson Darby among
the
Plymouth Brethren in England in the early 1830s.
If
people would simply allow their minds to go back to the time in which
language
was written, they would not make the mistake of applying language of a
former
time to the time in which they were living. Let us illustrate. Suppose
you were
reading a book dealing with the history of the American Revolution, and
the
author quoted a speech made by General George Washington in which he
said,
“This generation will not pass til you see this revolution come to a
successful
end and the Colonies freed from British domination.” By what rule of
logic or
language would you apply that to the generation in which you were
living? None!
Then by what rule of logic or language would you apply the words of our
gracious Lord to the generation in which you were living rather than to
the one
in which he was living? When Jesus said, “this generation will by no
means pass
away til all these things take place,” he spoke not of a far off
generation
that would come into existence some two or three thousand years in his
future,
or our future, rather he spoke of the generation in which he and his
disciples
were living. That is the only way the language can be read, and that is
the
only thing that makes sense. If Jesus had said, “some generation will
by no
means pass away til all these things take place,” or if he had said, “a
generation will by no means pass away til all these things take place,”
we could
understand the confusion arising in the minds of those who might read
his
words. But, dear reader, that is most emphatically not what the
Messiah
said! He said his generation would not pass until all those
things took
place. He meant the very same thing he meant in Mark 9:1 when referring
to the
coming of the Kingdom he said, “...there are some standing here who
will not
taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power”
(NKJV). Jesus
said, and meant to say, that the things of which he spoke in that
sermon would
happen before the generation to which he belonged passed away from the
earth.
Hence, that of which Jesus spoke was not the
destruction of the universe in which we live, but the destruction of
the
universe in which the Jews lived. The entire world of their religion,
politics
and everyday life was going to pass away before the end of a forty-year
period,
which was the usual duration of a generation in those days. Hence, we
need not
fear the things mentioned in this discourse by our Lord coming upon us,
or on
our children or grandchildren, for these events have all come to pass
when
Jesus said they would—before that generation ended! The pessimistic and
fear
engendering doctrines of Premillennialism are as false as all their
prophecies of
the world’s coming to an end have proved to be. Read the Bible the way
it was
intended to be read, with your mind in the generation to whom it was
written.
This Generation