<p>24:3&nbsp;<i>And as He sat on the mount of Olives</i>- The word picture is painted of the Lord sitting alone, and then the disciples come to Him. Again we sense the separation between the Lord and His followers. Matthew gives much attention to the Lord sitting (13:1,2; 15:29; 22:44). This is what we would expect of a genuine eyewitness who recalled the Lord's body language and movements.</p><p><i>The disciples</i>- Mk. 13:3 defines them as strictly Peter, James, John and Andrew. Hence they came &ldquo;privately&rdquo;.</p><p><i>Came to Him privately</i>- See on :1&nbsp;<i>Came to Him</i>.</p><p><i>Saying: Tell us, when shall these things be? And what is the sign</i>- They clearly expected one particular sign, and&nbsp;<i>semeion</i>&nbsp;is typically used of a miraculous wonder. Instead, the Lord gave them a series of signs which they were to discern. The fulfilment of these signs in our times is no less than a miracle- that such detailed predictions could start to come true before our eyes. Such fulfilment of prophecy is therefore itself a miracle. The disciples repeat the Pharisees' question about when the end will come- in almost the same words. They were clearly influenced by them (Lk. 17:20 cp. Mk. 13:4). &nbsp;</p><p><i>Of your coming</i>- Without doubt,&nbsp;<i>parousia</i>&nbsp;is used in the NT and contemporary literature to refer to a literal and not an invisible presence (e.g. 1 Cor. 16:17; 2 Cor. 7:6; 10:10; Phil. 1:26; 2:12). Any 'coming' of the Lord in Jerusalem's judgment of AD70 was only at best a foretaste of His final coming. It's simply not good enough to claim that He 'came' invisibly or spiritually. The word&nbsp;<i>parousia</i>&nbsp;simply doesn't mean this. And yet the destruction of the temple and His 'coming' are linked together; hence my conclusion that His&nbsp;<i>parousia</i>&nbsp;was delayed and the prophetic program delayed and rescheduled.</p><p><i>And of the end of the age</i>- See on :2&nbsp;<i>Thrown down</i>. They saw this as parallel with His 'coming' and the destruction of the temple. There is no suggestion that they saw these as three different chronological events, and the Lord's answers give no hint that He saw them as distinct events. Quite simply, the Lord's second coming and the destruction of the temple were understood by them all, the Lord included, as simultaneous. The fact the Lord's coming didn't occur when the temple was destroyed can only therefore mean that the Divine program was rearranged. For preterism notwithstanding, the Lord has clearly not returned in glory yet, neither did He do so in AD70. &quot;The end of the age&quot; had been use by the Lord to describe the last day of judgment (Mt. 13:39,40, as also Dan. 12:4,7 LXX). The very same phrase used in 13:39,40,49 with clear reference to the Lord's second coming. In no way was the separation between true and false believers, and the punishment of all the latter class, achieved in AD70. The phrase is also used in 28:20, where the Lord sends out the disciples on their great preaching mission with the assurance that He will be with them &quot;unto the end of the age&quot;. The implication could be that the end of the age is dependent upon the fulfilment of the great commission. The disciples failed in this, both in performing it because of their initial hang up about preaching to Gentiles and because of the paucity of response to their work. And so the end of the age, the second coming, is yet to come- when the Gospel really does go into all the world, then the end shall come (:14). Heb. 9:26 uses the phrase with reference to the situation in the first century- &quot;now once in the end of the age has Christ appeared&quot;. It could have come then- but it did not. Rom. 9:28 speaks of how God will have to finally intervene in speeding things up- and Paul writes here in the context of Israel's final response to the Gospel: &quot;He will end s.w. the work, and cut it short&quot;. And the word for &quot;end&quot; is also used to describe how God will end or finally execute the new covenant with Israel (Heb. 8:8)- when they accept that new covenant in responding to the Gospel. Clearly the global preaching of the Gospel and Israel's response to it are crucial requirements for the &quot;end of the age&quot; to come. And there is no lack of evidence that these signs are on the cusp of fulfilment.</p><p>Usually, the Lord didn't reply directly to questions (in this case, &ldquo;When&hellip;?&rdquo;); He gave answers which branched out into something altogether more comprehensive than the original question (Consider Mt. 13:10,11; 15:2,3; Mk. 10:4,5; Lk. 17:20; Jn. 3:4,5; 4:9,10; 6:28,29; 8:53,54; 11:8,9; 14:22,23).&nbsp;<i>Nearly every example of the Lord Jesus answering a question includes this feature.</i>&nbsp;To the disciples, the destruction of the temple meant the end of the age- it was a calamity. They assumed that if the temple was destroyed, it must be replaced immediately by their Jesus coming again with his Messianic Kingdom. Their minds were still not suitably distanced from their Judaist background. They asked&nbsp;<i>one</i>&nbsp;question: &quot;When shall these things (the destruction of the temple) be? And what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?&quot; (Mk. 13:4). Mt. 24:4 can make it seem that they asked two questions: &quot;When shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the world?&quot;. But the parallel record in Mk. 13:4 makes it clear that actually these were parts of the same question concerning the temple's destruction. To the disciples, the coming of Christ, the end of the world and the temple's destruction were all the same event. It could be that the Lord answered their question by speaking of how there would be the destruction of the temple, but His real coming and the final ending of this world would be at a future date. His answer was therefore fundamentally relevant to his second coming, although built into it was some reference to the destruction of the temple in AD70. As He so often does, the Lord turned round the terms of the question. They thought his &quot;coming&quot; would be at the temple's destruction, and so they asked for signs of His &quot;coming&quot;. But Christ shows that this wasn't a correct view: His real &quot;coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory&quot; (Mt. 24:30) would not be then, but after all the various signs he described were fulfilled. He was surely saying: 'OK the temple will be destroyed, and many of the signs I'm giving will have some application to that period; but the destruction of the temple isn't the sign of my coming. Note the signs I give you, and watch for their fulfilment: and&nbsp;<i>then</i>&nbsp;you'll know when to expect my coming'.&nbsp;<br />When the disciples asked &quot;When shall these things be, and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?&quot; (Lk. 21:7), the Lord didn't cut short the conversation by saying 'Well actually you can't know, so your question isn't appropriate'. He gave them just what they asked for: signs whereby the faithful would know &quot;when these things shall come to pass&quot;. The primary application of all this was that the faithful knew exactly the approaching end of the Jewish age in AD70- everything went according to plan, for those who correctly understood the prophecies. Therefore James, Peter and Paul could assuredly teach that &quot;the judge standeth before the door&quot; (James 5:9) etc. And it is apparent that the situation in the run up to AD70 was typical of that in our last days. Likewise, the position of the faithful remnant in Babylon at the time of the restoration is another type of latter day events. And they too had an opening of their eyes to the prophetic word, resulting in an ability to clearly see where they were, and that the time of restoration of Israel's Kingdom was imminent. 'What will be the signs of the last days?' was indeed answered quite directly, but building up to a personal, incisive appeal to pray constantly that we will be preserved from those horrors and be accepted before the final judgment seat of God's Son (Lk. 21:7,36). It was as if the Lord was adding a powerful caveat- as if to say 'Now don't go and get obsessed and distracted trying to match these signs to current events- worry about how&nbsp;<i>you</i>&nbsp;will survive the last days, and whether, when you stand before Me in the very end, you will stand or fall before Me'. And 'Are you really the Messiah? Do you really fulfil all the Old Testament prophecies?' was met by an appeal to not stumble in faith (Lk. 7:21-23).</p>