III. The Disciples Follow and Question Jesus.

Can you imagine being one of the twelve disciples and spending every waking moment with Jesus, and listening to, and being challenged by, His every word for some 3+ years?In the gospel of Matthew alone, there are over 65 references about Heaven in the inspired writing by Matthew of his conversations with and the teaching of Jesus.It seemed like His every word, through parables and teaching, was comparing His Heavenly life He left behind with His earthly sojourn. 

Jesus told His twelve disciples, perhaps 8-10 times while in His last days on earth as their teacher and leader, that He was going to leave them, was soon to be crucified, be put in a grave for three days and three nights, and would be raised from the dead by God His Father. (Acts 2:24 Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.)  Then He would spend another forty days on earth proving His resurrection, after which He would ascend to heaven in the presence of His followers. (Acts 1:9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.)  He also told His followers, through an angel, that if He went back to heaven, and was going to prepare a place for them, He would positively come back and take them, and all the elect that followed, to be with the Lord in Heaven for all eternity. (John 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.)  If you were one of the twelve, and heard the Masters’ teaching for some 1,200 days, more or less, and were becoming ever more confidant that the time for asking questions was soon to end, wouldn’t you have many questions to ask, as you wondered how, and when, and where all of this was going to take place?  I know I would have! 

It was just one day after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the day Christendom generally refers to as Palm Sunday and the day Jesus showed His great displeasure with what was going on in His temple, that he spent the day teaching the chief priests and elders.  Can’t you just picture the disciples as they were leaving the temple area with their teacher and Master later in the day?  The disciples turned to Jesus, and as they looked back at the magnificent temple, they remarked how beautiful it was with its impressive stone surfaces, and its marvelous pillars.  Jesus answered them, and likely brought great solemnity to the occasion, when He told them the temple they were looking at, with its huge stones weighing many tons each and its magnificent pillars, would be completely destroyed, and not one stone would be left upon another. (Matthew 24:2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”)  The Romans fulfilled this destruction prophecy in A.D. 70.

As they crossed the Kidron Valley and ascended to the Mount of Olives in the afternoon hours, very likely on Monday, just two days before the Passover meal and three days before the crucifixion, it was a somber group. (Matthew 26:1-2, 1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, 2 “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”)  Time was getting very short.  I can hear the twelve discussing the day, and what Jesus had told them about His soon coming death, which, at that moment, they did not fully comprehend.  They pondered, and thought that if His death was surely going to take place very soon, they should make haste while they still had time, and try to get some of their many questions answered which had been puzzling them.  So Peter, James, John and Andrew (specifically mentioned in Mark 13:3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately,) garnered the courage to ask Jesus privately to tell all the disciples just what he meant, and when all these things He had prophesied would take place, and what would be the sign (singular) of His coming to take them to be with Him in heaven.  It was normal behavior and customary for the Jewish people, God’s chosen lineage, when dealing with God, or Jesus in particular in this case, to ask for a sign.  If they knew what the sign was ahead of time, then when they saw this sign take place, it would be the confirmation that they, or the future followers of Jesus, were getting the genuine, God given, answer.

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