Kaik:
The Olivet prophecy did not really fullfilled at 70AD. Look into that Mat 24:7
- For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
The context warns against taking these events as indicators of when "the end" will come. The disciples wanted to know "When?" And Jesus' initial answer is:
(Matthew 24:4-8 NWT) . . . “Look out that nobody misleads YOU; 5 for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. 6 YOU are going to hear of wars and reports of wars; see that YOU are not terrified. For these things must take place, but the end is not yet. (nation, kingdoms against each other, famines, earthquakes, pestilences would occur) . . .All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress.
So Jesus wasn't telling the disciples to look for a "fulfillment" of these events. Rather, he was telling them that they could expect to see events like these and not to let these type events (whether witnessed first hand or heard of from others), and which were fairly common in the human experience, to suddenly get them to thinking that 'this is it,' or to believe others claims that these type events were significant in connection with when the end would come.
That is not to say that there wouldn't be an "end" for the Jewish nation/temple, or a much later "parousia" for Jesus, but those events in vv. 4-8 would not be the event(s) that would indicate the "end" had arrived. According to Jesus, verse 15 was the foretold event that they were to watch for.
Commenting on Matthew 24:4-8 (which formed the initial answer to the disciples question of, "When will these things be"), the NICNT-Matthew commentary (pp. 901-02) offers this:
- Interspersed with the answer to the question "When?" is a series of warnings against misreading the significance of historical events and so succumbing to premature eschatalogical excitement. This part of the discourse (vv. 4-13), also gives pastoral guidance for puzzeled disciples in unsettling times: they are to keep their heads when all around them are panicking or falling prey to opportunists. Verses 6-8 focus on this theme: catastrophic world events are not in themselves signs of "the end." The preceding warning in vv. 4-5 suggests that this "end" was in some way linked with messianic claimants, and the same theme will emerge more fully in vv. 23-26 with specific refeence to the period of the siege of Jerusalem. When events begin to look threatening, there will be a tendency to imagine that this is the beginning of the eschatalogical climax, the "messianic" age, and people will take advantage of that notion to press their own claims. . .
- It is remarkable how often occurrences such as those mentioned in these verses (vv. 4-8) are appealed to by those who are trying to work out a pattern for eschatalogical ["end time" - Bobcat] events, whereas in fact they are mentioned here precisely in order to discourage such speculation and to assert that the events described are not part of an eschatalogical scenario, but rather routine events within world history which must not be given more weight than they deserve. Each generation has its share of political and natural disasters, and each is tempted to think that its own experiences are somehow worse and of more ultimate significance than the sufferings of other generations, but "it is not yet the end": at the most, such events can be seen as "the beginning of labor pains," but the period from the first labor pains to childbirth may be short or long.
[End quote]
(As a side point, note also the '4 horsemen' section of Revelation 6. The 1st rider is crowned, the 2nd rider pictures war, the 3rd rider pictures famine conditions, the 4th rider picture death by war, famine, sickness, and wild beasts. But then in vv. 9-11 the executed "souls" ask 'when will justice take place.' They are not seeing the ride of the 4 horsemen as an indicator that "the end" is imminent.)
For the sake of brevity, I'll comment on Matthew 24:30/Luke 21:27 in another post.
Take care
