THE OLIVET PROPHECY
One of the greatest sources of misunderstanding preached in the end-time Churches of God pertains to the Olivet Prophecy, found in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21.
In this prophecy, given by Jesus Christ just a few days before His death, the destruction of Jerusalem is foretold. Matthew describes this calamity as "great tribulation" (Matt 24:21), an event which in times prior to our own was generally considered to have occurred in the first century AD.
However, in the last 150 years or so the Churches of God (COG) have breathed new life into the phrase "great tribulation", re-imagining it into a future worldwide catastrophe to occur prior to the return of Christ.
Judea and Jerusalem were besieged and conquered between 67 and 73AD: first a large Roman army led by general Vespasian attacked Judea in 67AD, and subsequently his son, Titus, took command and totally destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70AD, 40 years after the Jews had rejected and killed Christ. This war is usually referred to as "The Jewish War" or "The First Jewish Revolt". Its final battle was in 73AD at the fortress of Masada, near the Dead Sea, where the last of the Jewish fighters were defeated.
A careful study of the three accounts of the Olivet Prophecy will show that its primary subject is this first century Roman campaign against Judea.
Before going through the text of Matthew 24, I will first give some explanatory notes to enable a better understanding of the context of this prophecy and the terminology employed. Some of these notes are drawn from the page "FULFILLED PROPHECIES".
[1] In Luke 21:23 the term "great distress" is used instead of "great tribulation" as found in Matthew 24:21. Luke says that "great distress" would affect "the land" (which he identifies as "Judea") and "this people" (the people of Judea, i.e. the Jews). He continues by stating that the time of "great distress" would be followed by "this people" being led away into captivity.
Luke next explains that after the period of "great distress" Jerusalem would remain under foreign rule until "the times of the Gentiles" (i.e. 2520 years of Jerusalem being under the control of Gentile nations, which had begun with Jerusalem's capture by Nebuchadnezzar) came to their appointed end (Lk 21:24).
Luke's account fits perfectly with "great tribulation" coming upon the Jews at the hands of the Romans in the first century.
[2] Some people like to claim that the "great tribulation" prophecy is dual, i.e. that there is both a first century fulfilment and an end time fulfilment. However, Christ said the exact opposite. He said, "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matt 24:21). How can that be dual?
[3] Much is made of Matthew 24:22 which states, "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened". The phrase "no flesh" is explained by the COG's as applying to the whole world. As noted above, however, Luke 21:23 shows that this calamity was to befall "the land" (Judea) and "this people" (the Jews), rather than the whole world. All that people had to do to escape this calamity was to leave "Judea" and "flee to the mountains" (Matt 24:16), which is exactly what the Christians did when an initial Roman assault on Jerusalem in 66AD was rebuffed, giving them time to flee and save their lives.
[4] Great confusion also results from misinterpreting the word "end" in Matthew 24:14, which states, "this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come". The commentaries of Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, and Jamieson, Fausset, Brown all agree that this verse is about the New Covenant gospel going out into the world through the preaching of the apostles, after which all things associated with the Old Covenant in Jerusalem were destroyed and came to an "end" in 70AD. Hence Christ logically continues in the next verse, "therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (Matt 24:15), i.e. "Jerusalem surrounded by armies" (Lk 21:20), "then know that its destruction is near" (rest of verse 20).
Even if one were to argue that the prophecy requires the gospel to have first been preached to an audience called "all the world", note that the Biblical writers already in their time considered the gospel to have gone "throughout the whole world" (Rom 1:8), been "made known to all nations" (Rom 16:26), "in all the world" (Col 1:6), and been "preached unto every creature under heaven" (Col 1:23).
[5] An additional source of misunderstanding involves the phrase, "the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven" in Matthew 24:29. The Churches of God commonly take this sentence literally. However, in type the sun pictures Christ, the moon pictures His wife (originally the nation of Israel, and subsequently the Church), and the stars picture the children of the family of God. This was portrayed on the fourth day of Creation week, as explained on the page "THE SEVEN DAY BLUEPRINT". We see this typology confirmed in Joseph's dream in Genesis 37 where we are told that the sun, moon and stars picture the family/nation of Israel, with Jacob, as father, being a type of Christ. In Scriptures like Isaiah 13:10 and Ezekiel 32:7, we also see the sun, moon and stars used figuratively to denote the demise of nations, pictured by the removal of God's light from them.
[6] Matthew 24:29 continues by stating, "the powers of the heavens will be shaken", which interpreters again usually fail to see as a figurative statement. The literal text has the singular "heaven". Heaven is God's dwelling place. Jerusalem is His dwelling place on Earth, or in other words, His heaven on earth. The "powers of heaven" therefore are the Gentile nations that successively conquered Jerusalem. In the prophecies of Daniel, God describes these powers and shows that they are pre-ordained by Him. Thayer's Lexicon says that the word translated here as "shaken" should be read as "will be caused to totter".
Therefore, the phrase "the powers of heaven will be shaken" should be understood in the sense that the ongoing Gentile powers, ordained by God to rule over Jerusalem, will rise and fall.
This is exactly in line with what Luke writes at this point in the Olivet Prophecy, when he says, "Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Lk 21:24). See the page "THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES" for more on this.
[7] Another verse in the Olivet prophecy that causes modern interpreters to fall into error is Matthew 24:34, "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place". The term "this generation" is usually incorrectly understood to mean our generation today. However, the Gospels record 23 occurrences of Christ using the word "generation" apart from the Olivet prophecy, and every one of them pertains to the people He was talking to in His day. In Matthew alone the word is used ten times. Here are seven of these occurrences:
(i) "But to what shall I liken this generation?" (Matt 11:16)
(ii) "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah" (Matt 12:39)
(iii) "The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here" (Matt 12:41)
(iv) "The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation .... " (Matt 12:42)
(v) "So shall it also be with this wicked generation" (Matt 12:45)
(vi) "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?" (Matt 17:17)
(vii) "Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation" (Matt 23:33-36). It should be noted that Christ spoke these words just prior to giving the Olivet Prophecy.
In Luke 17:25 we find Christ saying, "but first He (Christ) must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation". He was speaking about that generation of Jews of His day, who rejected Him as their Messiah and caused Him to suffer a painful death.
So we see that the term "this generation" in Matthew 24:34 must apply to the generation Christ was addressing at that time. What causes confusion in Matthew's account is that whereas verses 1-29 foretell the calamities that were about to befall Israel and Jerusalem in the first century, verses 30-31 refer to the time of Christ's second coming. After a parable in verses 32-33, Christ states in verse 34 that "this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place". People have mistakenly assumed that "all these things" includes Christ's second coming.
However, what we find here is that a particular form of literary construction has been used. A well-known example of this is found in Revelation 20:4-5 "And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection". The final sentence "this is the first resurrection" does not apply to the statement "but the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished", but rather it refers back to the main subject, i.e. those who "reigned with Christ for a thousand years".
This same literary construction is also used in Matthew's Olivet prophecy. Matthew 24:1-29 refers to the destruction of the Jewish nation and Jerusalem. Verses 30-31 describe much later events in history, but verse 34 refers back to the original topic.
[8] The text of Luke 21:23-24 says that the event described as "great distress" (i.e. "great tribulation") occurs before "the times of the Gentiles" are fulfilled. As the "times of the Gentiles" came to an end in the 20th century when the Jews got their country back, the words "great distress" or "great tribulation" cannot apply to a yet future event.
[9] Throughout Matthew's account of the Olivet Prophecy two very different Greek words are used repeatedly which in almost all English versions of the Bible have both been translated as "come", "comes" or "coming". These Greek words are "parousia" and "erchomai" and its derivatives. The fact that no differentiation has been made in translating these two words obscures the fact that Christ deliberately chose them in order to describe two very different events: "parousia" to denote the "day of the Lord" that was prophesied to come upon the Jews of Christ's time for their transgressions and rejection of Him, and "erchomai" to denote the second coming of Christ.
The word "parousia" is a noun meaning presence. An example of this can be seen in Philippians 2:12 where Paul contrasts "parousia" with the Greek word for absence. Similarly, in I Corinthians 5:3 and II Corinthians 13:2,10 Paul uses the related Greek verb "pareimi" to contrast being present with being absent. The word "erchomai" is a verb that most commonly means to come or to go.
A rare exception is Robert Young's 19th century "Literal Translation of the Holy Bible", which does show this differentiation and renders the four occurrences of "parousia" in Matthew 24 as "presence" (vv 3,27,37,39), and the six occurrences of "erchomai" as "come" or "coming" (vv 30,42,43,44,46,48).
Various major calamities in the history of mankind that are brought about by God are in Scripture referred to as a "day of the Lord". For instance, Joel describes the conquest of his people by the Babylonians as a "day of the Lord" in Joel 1:15, 2:1 and 2:11 (see the page "THE END TIME ELIJAH" for a full explanation of this). Jeremiah refers to the same event in Lamentations 2:22, calling it "the day of the Lord's anger". Similarly, Zephaniah speaks at length of this Babylonian conquest as a "day of the Lord", as does Obadiah. The conquest of Babylon by the Medes is in Isaiah 13 called a "day of the Lord" multiple times. Also, the defeat of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar is in both Ezekiel 30 and Jeremiah 46 called a "day of the Lord". Likewise, Judah's demise at the hands of the Romans, as predicted in detail here in the Olivet Prophecy, was foretold in Malachi 4:5-6 and called a "day of the Lord".
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is a clear example of Christ's involvement in a major event in the history of mankind. In Genesis 18-19 we see Christ and two angels visiting Abraham and then moving on to deal with these two evil cities. Christ was literally present to investigate the level of wickedness being perpetrated there, and to authorise the punishment that was to be inflicted. The word parousia (presence) in the Olivet Prophecy should be understood in the same way. For if the destruction of worldly evildoers warranted Christ's direct personal involvement, how much more so the destruction of His own people, Temple and Holy City?
As described on the page "FULFILLED PROPHECIES", the 67-73AD Roman defeat of the Jews fulfilled the last week of the Seventy Week Prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27. This war lasted one "week", i.e. seven years, and in the middle year, 70AD, the Temple was destroyed, bringing animal sacrifices to an end. Additionally, before the war began God's people were given a sign to flee. All these things were direct fulfilments of Daniel's prophecy.
The specific year 70AD was also prophesied by Ezekiel, who lay on his side for 40 days to picture 40 years of sin of the people of Judah (Eze 4:5-6). From Christ's death at the hands of the Jews in 31AD until 70AD there were 40 inclusive years during which the Jews in general continued to reject Him.
Additionally, Zechariah 13:7-8 refers to the time of Christ's crucifixion, as quoted in Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27, where Christ is the "Shepherd" whose "sheep shall be scattered", after which "two thirds in it shall be cut off". Indeed, in the 67-73AD war some two-thirds of the Jews were killed, as also foretold in the first trumpet of the seventh seal in Revelation 8. See "THE HISTORICAL SEVENTH SEAL (THE SEVEN TRUMPETS)" for more details on this.
Many other Scriptures also predict this period of time. Therefore, what should be abundantly clear is that for these events to occur after exactly 40 years, to last for exactly seven years, to bring about the destruction of the Temple in the middle year of the seven, to bring about the specified casualties, and to fulfil all the other details of the prophecy, Christ's presence (parousia) and involvement were imperative, and that is why it is called a "day of the Lord".
With all this in mind, let's now look at the Olivet Prophecy as recorded in Matthew 24. My annotations are in (brackets).
Matthew 24:1 Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.
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”.
3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately (Mark 13:3 states that it was specifically Peter, James, John and Andrew), saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming (Greek, "parousia"), and of the end of the age? (the apostles thought that the destruction of the Temple, the end of the age of Gentile rule over their land, and Christ's restoration of the kingdom to Israel (see Acts 1:6-7) would all occur at the same time, but Christ's answers show them otherwise)”.
4 And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you.
5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many (the NT shows us many instances where already in the early days of the Church a false message began to be preached in Christ's name. II Cor 11:13, Gal 1:6-9, Acts 15:5 and Rev 2:2 are just some of these examples).
6 And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars (between the year of Christ's death and the 70AD destruction of Jerusalem, Herod Antipas, king of Galilee and Perea, went to war with Aretas, king of Nabatea; numbers of large scale riots took place in various Jewish cities between ethnic Greeks and Jews, killing tens of thousands; and a civil war raged between Zealot "Sicarii" and the Roman occupiers of Judea and their sympathisers). See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation will rise against nation (ethnic rivalry, as above), and kingdom against kingdom (as above). And there will be famines (Acts 11:28-29 mentions famine coming to Judea. Paul collecting donations for the Jerusalem brethren confirms this), pestilences (a result of famine), and earthquakes in various places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake (the book of Acts gives many examples of these things).
10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many (the Jewish false prophet mentioned in Acts 13:6-10 was one of many).
12 And because lawlessness (among those professing Christianity) will abound (i.e. the false Christian gospel of "licentiousness" (Jude 1:4), claiming that Christ had done away with the law) the love of many will grow cold (love is the keeping of God's law (Ex 20:6, I Jn 5:3). Revelation 2:4 shows that the condition of love growing cold started in the first Church era).
13 But he who endures to the end (remains faithful to God) shall be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom (the New Covenant) will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations (will be preached to nations far and wide, which Rom 1:8, 16:26 and Col 1:8,23 state had already occurred in the apostle Paul's time), and then the end (of all things associated with the practices of the Old Covenant in Jerusalem) will come (in 70AD - this is the "end of the age" the disciples asked about in verse 3).
15 Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation’, spoken of by Daniel the prophet (in Dan 9:27), standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand) (Luke here states "but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know its desolation is near". This "abomination" was the autumn 66AD Roman assault on Jerusalem by Cestius Gallus which is the sign the disciples asked for in verse 3),
16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.
18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes.
19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!
20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath (the holy day of rest).
21 For then there will be great tribulation ("great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people" - Lk 21:23), such as has not been since the beginning of the world ("since there was a nation" of Israel - Dan 12:1) until this time, no, nor ever shall be (Ezekiel 5:9-13 also alludes to this event).
22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake (Mark here adds "whom He chose". Unlike in verses 24 and 31, where the "elect" are faithful Christians, "the elect .... whom He chose" (Mk 13:20) are the physical elect, i.e. the Jews) those days will be shortened (Titus' officers wanted to starve the inhabitants of Jerusalem in a long, drawn-out siege, which was a common tactic of the Romans. Titus, however, after waiting some time, decided to lift the siege and attack, as a speedy victory was desirable to shore up his father's role as the newly installed Roman emperor. Hence, many Jews survived).
23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it.
24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect (the three Jewish factional leaders, Simon bar Giora, John of Gischala, and Eleazar ben Simon, who led the revolt against the Romans, and also fought each other in Jerusalem until its 70AD capture, are examples of such deceivers).
25 See, I have told you beforehand.
26 Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it.
27 For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west (is seen all over the land of Israel), so also will the coming ("parousia") of the Son of Man be (Christ's "presence" in the 66-73AD "day of the Lord" as prophesied in Malachi 4:5-6).
28 For wherever the carcass is (the remnant of the Jewish nation), there the eagles (the Romans) will be gathered together (the Jews, through their rejection of Christ, had become spiritually dead, or in other words, a "carcass". Consequently, God gave them over to destruction by the Romans, whose national emblem was the eagle. Luke 21:24 states at this point of the narrative, "And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled").
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened (God's light ceased to shine on the Jewish nation), and the moon will not give its light (the Jews no longer reflected God's light into the world); the stars will fall from heaven (the Jews were removed from Jerusalem and dispersed among the nations), and the powers of the heavens (lit. "the powers of heaven", i.e. the powers that consecutively conquered and controlled Jerusalem) will be shaken (will periodically, violently change).
30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven (the 1948-1950 restoration of sovereign Jewish rule in Jerusalem, God's dwelling place or "heaven" on Earth, after the "seven times", or 2520 years, of the punishment of the Jews was completed), and then (very soon now) all the tribes of the earth (the land of Israel) will mourn (Zechariah 12:10 says "they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son"), and they will see the Son of Man coming (Greek, "erchomai") on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (the second coming of Christ).
31 And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet (the seventh trumpet of the seventh seal - Rev 11:15-19), and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (the gathering of the firstfruits of salvation at Christ's return - I Thes 4:16-17).
In verse 32 Christ tells a parable, and then in verse 33 makes its application clear to the disciples. However, Christ uses parables because their lessons apply to people of all times. In verse 34 Christ continues with His prophecy.
32 Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near (Luke 21:28-31 says, "your redemption draws near" and "the Kingdom is near").
33 So you also (the people in Christ's time), when you see all these things (the things described by Him which were to precede the destruction of Jerusalem), know that it is near - at the doors! (i.e. the end of the age of all the Temple based practices of the Old Covenant, and the commencement of the age of the New Covenant Church).
34 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation (the generation of Christ's day) will by no means pass away till all these things (the events leading up to and including what Christ labels "great tribulation", with its destruction of Jerusalem) take place.
35 Heaven and earth (Jerusalem and Israel) will pass away (in their form at that time), but My words will by no means pass away.
36 But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, ("nor the Son" - NIV), but My Father only (Christ would have known of Ezekiel's prophecy in Eze 4:6, which speaks of a 40 year period culminating in a siege of Jerusalem, specifically related to the sins of the House of Judah. Christ was put to death in 31AD, and the Romans besieged and destroyed Jerusalem in 70AD, which is 40 inclusive, unrepentant years later. Therefore the year of the fulfilment of these events was known to Him, and He was able to confidently state which generation would witness Jerusalem's destruction. However, of the specific "day and hour" (the exact time) no prophecy existed, so they were not known to Him, or anyone else, but only to the Father. Christ makes this declaration in verse 36 to contrast it with verses 48-50 below, where in regard to His second coming it is possible to work out the year, the day and even the specified time of that event. In Zechariah 14:7 we are told that the day of Christ's return "is known unto the Lord", i.e. unto Christ Himself. The same passage also speaks of the specific timing of His return. Based on all the chronological, prophetic and typological information available to Him from the Scriptures, there can be no doubt that Christ did know the exact time of His second coming, at the time that He gave the Olivet Prophecy).
37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming ("parousia") of the Son of Man be (verses 37-51 are mirrored by those of Luke 17:22-37, which were spoken by Christ some time before He gave the Olivet Prophecy, and where He states "so shall the Son of Man be in His day" - Lk 17:24).
38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away (in death), so also will the coming ("parousia") of the Son of Man be (Christ's "presence" in all the events of the 66-73AD "day of the Lord").
40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken (lit. "brought near", i.e. led to a place of safety in the region of Pella in the eastern foothills of the Jordan river) and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left (as above).
Christ then proceeds with two more parables:
42 Watch therefore, for you (the disciples Christ was speaking to) do not know what hour (lit. "day" - NIV, NASB) your Lord is coming ("erchomai" - Christ's second coming. As stated above, the fact that the "day of the Lord" destruction of Jerusalem, and Christ's second coming were almost 2,000 years apart was not known to the apostles at that time. In Acts 1:6 they ask Christ, soon after His resurrection, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?". After their conversion the apostles did begin to understand the times Christ was speaking about – see “The Man of Sin” for more on this).
43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come ("erchomai"), he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.
44 Therefore you also be ready (throughout your lives), for the Son of Man is coming ("erchomai") at an hour you do not expect (Christ knew that the disciples would have to die in the faith long before His second coming).
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes ("erchomai"), will find so doing (or blessed is that servant who continues to do so till the end of his life).
47 Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming ("erchomai")’ (the servant becomes complacent about Christ's return),
49 and begins to beat his fellow servants (through his own apostasy causes spiritual hurt to his brethren), and to eat and drink with the drunkards (spiritual drunkards),
50 the master of that servant will come (Greek, “heko” - i.e. “arrive”) on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of (meaning he will either die in an unprepared spiritual state or be alive in such a state at Christ's return. In our day there is no excuse for not knowing the time of Christ's second coming within a very close approximation. See the page "Daniel 11 & 12 - Kings of the North and the South" for an explanation of this),
51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
So we see that, contrary to what the majority of Churches of God are teaching, almost all of the Olivet Prophecy pertains to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation in the first century, and the conditions leading up to it.
We also see that there is no Scriptural foundation for the common belief that the term "great tribulation" mentioned in this prophecy is referring to an event just prior to Christ's second coming.
Note that the versions of the Olivet Prophecy found in Mark 13 and Luke 21 follow the same outline as Matthew 24, whilst providing a number of significant additional details. A commentary on Luke's version can be found on the page "THE REAL SEVEN SEALS".