NOTES for Luk 21:1-24
Christ's mysterious words about the end of the world and His second coming have mattered in every age. People have always been torn between a sense that the end is near and the warning that no one knows the time. But it appears that words one writer once said about death also apply to the end of the world: it is not only in the future; it is already at work in the world.
That is why the Gospel prophecies can be addressed to every person, whatever age he lives in. They contain not only a prediction of the final horrors; they are filled with confidence that Jesus will not abandon this world on the threshold of its ruin: "I will be with you, I will give you a word for bearing witness to the faith... fear nothing; not a hair of your head will fall in vain..." So these are words not only about the world's last days, but also about the final, ultimate faithfulness of Jesus to His disciples.