"A Problem with Timing” – Fighting for Real Estate – Part #34

“Like Jews of Old, Dispensationalists Fail to Understand the Day of Jesus’ Visitation ” (Luke 19:44)

By Richard Allen – September 21, 2026

Near the end of Jesus’ public ministry, on the day of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), Jesus made several startling statements as He approached the city. Here’s how the Gospel of Luke records these statements:

^“And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation’ ” (Luke 19:41-44).

We have already discussed part of Jesus’ prediction about demolishing the ‘massive stones of Herod’s Temple’ in a previous Blog. Jesus’ predicting the total destruction of Herod’s Temple – considered a wonder of the ancient world – was a jolt to the Apostles understanding of God’s purposes. It’s easy to understand their shock, as obedient Jews – they couldn’t imagine ‘how God could, or would be worshiped’ without the Temple. In their reasoning, Jesus had to be talking about the ‘end of the world.’ The Apostles and the early church did not believe that Jesus actually meant: The Temple would be razed to the ground – yet the worship of God would continue in a ‘New Temple made of living stones.’  The hearts and minds of men and women in the Church of Jesus Christ became ‘a habitation for God in the Spirit’ (Ephesians 2:22).  Both Stephen and Paul proclaimed this very truth before the Jewish Sanhedrin and to Gentile Philosophers on Mars Hill, telling both Jews and Gentiles: “God Doesn’t dwell in Temples made with hands” (Acts 7:48; 17:24).  Just before Christ’s crucifixion, the Apostles were amazed at Jesus’ prediction about the Temple. At that point – they did not understand the time of their visitation – in fact, it was ‘hidden from their eyes’ (Luke 19:42). God would be “taking the vineyard from those wicked husbandmen, and giving it to other tenants, who will give him the produce at the right season” (Matthew 21:41).

Now, almost 2,000 years later, I have to report that: Most Jews, and many Gentiles, have fallen into this same befuddled thinking about God’s timing – neither grasping the words of Jesus nor other prophetic passages in Scripture that speak of the ‘End Times.’ Jesus, appearing in ‘another form’ than His disciples were able to see, reasoned with the two men with whom He traveled on the road to Emmaus in Luke chapter 24. They were forlorn at the “things that had transpired in recent days concerning the man Jesus, a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke  24:19-21). These two disciples had ‘hoped that Jesus would redeem Israel,’ but since He was put to death, that was no longer possible. In their understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures, the Messiah was ‘anointed by God’ to redeem and deliver Israel from her oppressors, and establish Israel as a ‘glorious theocracy.’ Jesus, David’s Son, will be sitting on a throne in Jerusalem – overthrowing Rome – and ruling the nations with a ‘rod of iron’ (Revelation 2:27). At this time, the Emmaus disciples didn’t know Jesus was Resurrected. But Jesus didn’t leave them in their ignorance, He powerfully admonished them:

“How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27).

Notice, Jesus doesn’t say:  “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things, then in a few thousand years enter His glory?” Their timing was way off. Jesus did suffer death on the cross and ‘entered into His glory!’ In the Great Commission, Jesus gave commandments to His Servants:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).

This was the ‘Redemption’ these two disciples hoped Jesus would have accomplished. Their problem was they were still looking for Physical Deliverance from Rome. They mistakenly believed God would provide National Redemption, like they had ‘fleetingly enjoyed’ under the ‘Old Covenant.’ But none of those deliverances ever brought Israel lasting peace, Never!  So, God purposed to give them a ‘New Covenant,’ that would be drastically different.  God promised through the Prophet Jeremiah, that this ‘New Covenant’ would not be like the Old Covenant which He made with their fathers in the past.  Men in the flesh could not keep that Covenant:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new Covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the Covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my Covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘This is the Covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people’ ” (Jeremiah 31:31-33).

It should be clear to every Believer that under the ‘New Covenant,’ both ‘Jews and Gentiles’ are now included by Faith! This is drastically different than the Old Covenant that God made with the Israelites – because we live in the Age of the Spirit! God giving His Spirit to ‘indwell His People,’ enabling them to obey from the heart, is the ‘game-changer’ that makes the ‘New Covenant’ radically different from the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant, symbolized by dead ‘Tables of Stone,’ was never meant to save men by making them righteous!  It was a ‘Truant Officer’ (Schoolmaster), whose only purpose was to “convict and lead men and women to Jesus Christ to obtain righteousness” (Galatians 3:24). This is why Jesus admonished Nicodemus “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 6, 7).  Jesus wasn’t just talking about the experience of being Born Again (or from above). No, this New Birth was an act of God the Holy Spirit, Regenerating (giving new life), and “writing God’s Law on Tables of Flesh, giving us new minds and hearts” (thoughts and affections, Hebrews 10:16). Paul makes it clear to the Corinthian Church:

"You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2 Corinthians 3:3).

We’ve worked through many important Themes in this Blog series: “Fighting for Real Estate.” Three of those themes really jump out as we near the conclusion of this series: 1.) The Land and a City, 2.) A Covenant, and 3.) A Promised Seed.  Thanks to Pastor Voddie Baucham, a wonderful servant of Christ who just went home to be with the Lord a year ago in September, 2025 – reminded me in one of his sermons about Joseph’s sons regarding several of these themes. All of them are found in the Old Testament and communicated in its ‘infancy to the people of God.’ These themes were not just in ‘seed form,’ but were adapted to the People of God without the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Seeking to express His Blessings and Salvation – God often utilized child-like language to communicate to a ‘physical people without the Spirit,’ to help them grasp God’s Purpose and Plan: “To Make Christ head over all things to the Church” (Ephesians 1:22).

1.) The Land and a City: From the days of Father Abraham until Jesus, God’s Salvation and Blessings were couched in the language of physical blessings and prosperity. These are things children can easily understand, having a place to call your own, property that is secure with food, water and other provisions, grapes, wine, barley and oil – these are ‘temporary earthly blessings.’ They all pointed to ‘spiritual and Eternal Blessings’ that God would provide in Christ. Jesus promised ‘Living Waters’ (John 4:14). The very first man to ‘believe God and be counted Righteous,’ Abraham, understood that the physical land was not the ultimate blessing to which we are called.  No, “But now we desire a better country, that is, a heavenly country. Wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city”(Hebrews 11:16). That’s the Spiritual place we long to be, “The New Jerusalem” (Revelation 21:2).

2.) A Covenant: Covered earlier in this Blog. What I need to stress is that the ‘New Covenant is Not Temporary,' nor is the 'Old Covenant Eternal.' Dispensationalists have their timing flipped. We call it the Old Covenant because it came first, served its purpose, and has now been fulfilled and set aside, as Jeremiah proclaimed. It’s the ‘New Covenant’ that Hebrews calls, ‘The Everlasting Covenant’ (Hebrews 13:20).

3.) A Promised Seed: Again, from the time of Father Abraham onward, God had given His People under the Old Covenant, ‘a promise.’ New Testament writers make it clear that this promise was so important that the Law (Decalogue) itself couldn’t set it aside, or make it null and void, because Christ was the Promised Seed. In Him alone is there an ‘inheritance’ given to both Jews and Gentiles, the Promised Holy Spirit!

“In Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith . . . Brothers: even with a man-made Covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, “And to seeds,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. . . .The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a Covenant previously ratified by God. . . For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise” (Galatians 3:14-18).

The Good News of Jesus is: All these Themes have come to fruition in Christ! There’s no more Fighting for Real Estate (Land), or waiting for the Temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Let’s not make the mistakes of first century Jews or Dispensationalists – longing for the Infancy with all its carnal blessings to return. Like Abraham, we look for ‘a Heavenly country and a City that has real Foundations!’ (Hebrews 11:10).

Soli Deo Gloria!