Luke 21:5-9
Let us notice in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ’s words about the temple at Jerusalem. We read that some spake of it, “how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts.” They praised it for its outward beauty. They admired its size, its architectural grandeur, and its costly decorations. But they met with no response from our Lord. We read that he said, “As for these things which ye behold, the days will come in the which there shall not be left one stone upon anotherm that shall not be thrown down.”
These words were a striking prophecy. How strange and startling they must have sounded to Jewish ears, an English mind can hardly conceive. They were spoken of a building which every Israelite regarded with almost idolatrous veneration. They were spoken of a building which contained the ark, the holy of holies, and the symbolical furniture formed on a pattern given by God Himself. They were spoken of a building associated with most of the principal names in Jewish history; with David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah. They were spoken of a building toward which every devout Jew turned his face in every quarter of the world, when he offered up his daily prayers. (1 Kings 8:44; Jonah 2:4; Dan. 6:10) But they were words spoken advisedly. They were spoken in order to teach us the mighty truth that the true glory of a place of worship does not consist in outward ornaments. “The Lord seeth not as man seeth.” (1 Sam. 16:7) Man looketh at the outward appearance of a building. The Lord looks for spiritual worship, and the presence of the Holy Ghost. In the temple at Jerusalem these things were utterly wanting, and therefore Jesus Christ could take no pleasure in it.