We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

The Lord is faithful.

My household goes through a lot of food, in as much as our family size is greater than average. Also, a few of those family members are children in their teen years, which seems to increase their food consumption rate, but that would be true for average-sized families too.  Add to all that the inflation we each are dealing with, and our food budget has been stretched for more than a few months.

But God...

...put it on someone's heart to donate a grocery shopping trip to someone, and asked a friend of ours to be the finder of the recipient family and facilitator of the blessing.  That friend thought of us and asked my wife for a list of things she would normally buy, letting us know why. Then delivered about a month's worth of food (budget-wise) to our door.  Praise the Lord!

...and then a friend of ours has a family member that runs a deli, and has to dispose of fresh bread if it's not used up within a certain time-frame. The owner said they have tried giving it to non-profits that feed people, but it's been difficult to manage that, so they were looking for new outlets.  So now we occasionally are getting a bag of five or so 24" baguette/sub-sandwich loaves of bread. Once it came with a couple of pounds of sliced roast-beef!

I get a bit overwhelmed if I stop to think about it too long.  Thank you, Lord, for your provision in my life. You are faithful.

Please keep me in prayer for new employment. 

My last employment situation ended amicably on May 12, with a decent severance package that will keep me "normal" for a few months.

I know God has something for me to do, but I don't think I've found it yet.

   

I'm grateful to Sister Linda for her support -- for my hands in this case. The stock handlebars are too wide and too far away from me, not to mention almost devoid of cushion. This new "butterfly" handlebar offers more places to put my hands, cushy grips and it puts the controls closer to me.

Also, note that the brake levers and shifters are now protected inside the loop of the handlebar. I looked at kickstands, but all the ones I could find to fit this odd frame were too heavy. So every time I stop for a picture or to pick berries or something, I'll have to lay the bike down. I've broken brake levers on previous bikes because they were exposed.

Finally, I now have a much better place to hang camping gear when it cools down enough to try bikepacking again. They make strap-rolls that hang from the handlebars to avoid the extra weight of a front rack. Besides, those racks don't fit well on this kind of frame.

Here you go: Superficial America. It's a matter of marketing the faith experience without having to actually build real faith. Sure, we might easily cite other factors, and I have often, but this rings true, as valid a criticism as anything else.

Everything Jesus has said so far while sitting on the Olivet hillside is just the beginning, not the End. The End was a wholly different matter.

However, He did broach the topic of His Second Coming in verse 27, which was their second question. He was actually warning them not to expect His Return in connection with the destruction of the Temple. It would be natural for everyone to expect it, and there would be frauds based on that expectation, but the destruction of Jerusalem was not the end of the world, only the end of Judea as a political entity.

So in verse 29 He returns to the theme of His Return. He uses the expression "those days" as a plural of "That Day" -- the Day of God's Wrath and Judgment. What comes in the package with that? His description is a standard prophetic phrase meaning that everything humanity has ever known would come to an end.

Then He would appear in the sky and the inherent moral blindness of this fallen existence would be pulled away. Everyone will see Him and know Him for whom He is, and recognize their guilt as sinners. The angels will scatter to gather into His Kingdom all the elect of the earth. That Day will come without warning.

However, the destruction of the Temple and related events will have plenty of warning (verse 32). So He uses a parable about fig trees, telling them to be watching and be ready. There will be plenty of signs for that event. And indeed, those living as He spoke these words would mostly be still alive when the Temple would be destroyed (verse 34). Everything they knew could fail, but His promises would stand eternally.

But the Second Coming can have no warning (verse 36). Only the Father knows when He will do that. Even the Son didn't know. It would be more like the Day of the Flood. Noah was told what to do in preparation, but not the day when the earth was covered in water. Most refused to listen and did not repent. In verses 40-41 Jesus depicts the day when the guilty would be taken away to face their judgment. Suddenly the troops come riding up and snatch them away.

You never know when the Lord will come.

Jesus offers another parable to illustrate (verse 42). He talks about how the head of a household would have a much easier task if he could predict when a thief would show up to steal in the dark of night. He could stay awake that night and catch him. Instead, it's the kind of thing where you have to 24/7. The Second Coming is impossible to predict; there will be no signs, no warnings.

We are to be like the household steward, taking care of business just as if the Master were still home to watch. That way, when He does Return, He won't be disappointed, and neither will the steward. Those who do not prepare and look forward to the Second Coming will face unspeakable sorrow.

So, to answer their second question, there can be no sign of His Coming. The next chapter of Matthew addresses the third question.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

I have had a sense that before the November elections we would have that moment when "all hell breaks loose" here in the US. Until recently, I couldn't guess which issue would be the one to set it off. It now appears that the triggering issue will be the Green agenda. From what I've read, our ruling regime has been trying hard to push through some Green legislation, but it won't make it through the Senate. The activists in Congress, who want this so bad they can taste it, have recently been pressing Biden to declare a national emergency and force the changes into place.

We are talking about severely cutting petroleum production, raising fuel prices, etc. Stuff that's supposed to reduce our "carbon footprint". The activists are demanding it be done before the November elections, when they already know they'll lose the House and maybe the Senate. Using emergency executive powers is just asking for a harsh backlash.

If you ask me, this would be that moment when all hell breaks loose. Keep an eye on that issue.

I'll be starting on formatting the next compilation of Ed's books, the fourth one. It will be Acts, Revelation, and the Letters. Not sure of a title, but will be something like Ancient Truth: Acts, Letters, and Revelation. I, for one, am excited, as usual.

The parallel passages in Mark 13 and Luke 21 are more sketchy than Matthew's version. The other two weren't actually there, but were reporting second hand. Also, Matthew has been careful to record the impact of Jesus' teaching on a Jewish mind. Jesus is declaring the end of the Covenant of Moses along with the end of Jewish identity.

After dressing down the Pharisees and Scribes, Jesus left the Temple Plaza. Most likely He departed through the Eastern Gate. Some of His entourage were locals who lived with constant renovations and upgrades to the Temple structure. Not knowing what else to say at this point, they indicated to Jesus some of the most recent changes that He might not have noticed. After all, this was part of what He was about to inherit when He declared Himself Messiah and King.

Jesus bluntly answered by describing the coming destruction under the Roman General Titus. The structures built by men do not really matter to the Kingdom of the Messiah. They all must have been dumbfounded as Jesus continued on, walking down into the Kidron Valley and up the far side on the slope of Olivet. Somewhere near the top, He stopped for a while in a spot that offered a view from above the Temple. After what He had just said, we can imagine Him staring down on the massive complex.

The context indicates it was the Twelve that dared to interrupt His reverie with what they believed was all one question. When would this destruction happen? Such a cataclysm was plausible to them, if one approached it from the idea that the battle to seize His throne would be so very destructive. He had already said something about raising up "the Temple" in three days after it was destroyed (John 2). They had no doubt that His miraculous powers were up that. Such was what they meant by "Your coming" -- Jesus arising to seize power. And of course, by now they had some idea it meant the end of this world as they knew it.

But it was not a single question. Jesus tried to reorder their messy thinking. It was actually three distinct questions, and each indicating different events. But first, He must armor them against the coming sorrows that would tend to confuse everything. "Pay attention to what I'm about to say, so that no one can confuse you."

In verses 4-14, Jesus warns that human catastrophes come and go, and none of it really means anything. The kind of stuff they were imagining would not be omens. They are simply a part of human existence. Wars and natural disasters are not an indicator of anything in particular regarding the Kingdom of Heaven. Indeed, it gets worse, because humans will persecute and murder you for the sake of the gospel message. Again, it doesn't mean anything significant has changed. It's just the common lot of our existence on this earth. As long as you are alive, don't be distracted by such things.

Indeed, the world as we know it will not end before Jesus' message has been spread across the whole earth, so don't worry about it. You have a lot of work ahead of you to get that mission accomplished.

Then Jesus turns to the issue of the destruction of Jerusalem, their first question. In verses 15-22, He warns about the coming campaign of Titus in 70 AD, when many of those listening to Him would still be alive. Once Rome breaches their promise to keep troops out of the Temple grounds, it will be almost too late to flee the city. The Father would make it a short battle, as opposed to a prolonged siege, only because there were sure to be Christians living in the city at the time.

After such a horrifying war, it would be important for those surviving believers, people who would be in shock, to be forewarned what to expect. Verses 23-28 cover this issue of the aftermath. In such an atmosphere, hucksters would seek to take advantage of them. They would claim to be the new manifestation of the Messiah, and there would be false prophets doing apparent miracles, and any number of predators trying to rally them for false causes.

You know it's coming, so don't be surprised. One thing they can cling to is this: When the Messiah comes in power, it will be painfully obvious to the whole of humanity. It would be utterly public and no one alive would miss it. He adds a common parable that most people miss entirely, about a carcass and eagles. Don't get hung up on the imagery.

Vultures rely on their sense of smell and can't see that well. It can take them awhile to find a rotting carcass. Eagles will rely on their sharp eyes to spot something not yet dead, but almost there. They will seize the opportunity to eat fresher food, and then leave the rest for the vultures to find later. Jesus is saying not to be lazy, waiting until things are obvious, but to keep a sharp attention on what really matters, and act as quickly as possible. Don't be there when the vultures show up.

There's nothing wrong with hanging on in the city, spreading the gospel, until time runs out. When Rome comes marching in, His followers need to be fleeing out. What He said about the destruction of the Temple, and its apparent indication that the rest of the city will be under threat, actually had nothing to do with His Kingdom.

All of this He said to answer only the first question His disciples asked.