On the Mount of Olives Acts 1:1-11

1-11-15 AM

Noteworthy Mountains

• Ararat Mount of Beatitudes

• Sinai Calvary

• Mt. Carmel Mt. of Olives (Olivet)

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Mount of Olives Then and Now

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Incidents on/at Mount Olivet

• This is the place where David wept over the actions of his lost and rebellious son Absalom in (2 Sam. 15:30).

Incidents on/at Mount Olivet

• And later, it will be the place where Jesus wept, over a lost and rebellious people (Matt. 23:37; Mk. 13:1)

Incidents on/at Mount Olivet

• These are some of the “high places” where David’s other son Solomon, after submitting to the wishes of his pagan wives, reportedly built altars to other gods in (2 Kings 23:13).

Incidents on/at Mount Olivet

• In one of Ezekiel’s visions, the prophet said he saw the glory of the Lord depart from Jerusalem and come to rest “above the mountain east of it” [IE. Mount Olivet] (Ezekiel 11:23).

Jesus & The Mount of Olives

• Every time Jesus visited Lazarus and Mary and Martha, He was on the Mount of Olives. The village of Bethany is situated on the eastern slope. And the road from Bethany to Jerusalem lay over Olivet.

Jesus & The Mount of Olives

• Jesus’ First Visit (in the last week of His life) was to deliver what has come to be known as the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:1—25:46. (With parallel passages are found in Mk. 13:1–37 and Luke 21:5–36.)

Three Significant Visits

Jesus & The Mount of Olives

• Jesus’ Second Visit is what we call the Triumphal Entry. The donkey Jesus rode that day was found in the area of Bethany and Bethphage, on the east side of the Mount of Olives (Lk 19:29–30).

Three Significant Visits

Jesus & The Mount of Olives

• Jesus’ third visit was on the night He was betrayed. That evening began with the Last Supper in Jerusalem and ended in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.

Three Significant Visits

The Garden of Gethsemane (“Garden of the Oil-press”) is located on the western slope of the Mount of Olives.

Jesus & The Mount of Olives

Three Significant Visits

It’s also where He was betrayed with a kiss, arrested, and led away to undergo many horrific acts against Himself, culminating in His savage death on the Cross for your sins and mine. Lk. 22:47-48.

Luke 24:50-52

• “40 days after the Passover— Jesus led His disciples out to the vicinity of Bethany, [and] He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He left them and was taken up into Heaven. Then they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”

Acts 1:4-5

• “Gathers the men together, and He commands them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had *promised, “Which,” He said, “You heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit *not many days from now.” (*Notice the time frame)

Acts 1:6-7

• The 11 then ask “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the Kingdom to Israel?” [Still, apparently thinking of Jesus as an earthly King, and Israel as an earthly power…] He essentially says “No,” to them, adding “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;

Acts 1:8

• “But … you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the Earth.”

Acts 1:9-11

• Immediately following Jesus’ ascension, two angels told the disciples on the Mount of Olives that “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into Heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into Heaven.”

John 19:30 / 17:4

• And with that Jesus role on earth was complete. He will never live on earth again… He does not need to “finish” the job. He did finish it…at Calvary.

• As He predicted in Jn. 17:4, and stated on the Cross in John 19:30- “It is finished!”

From Luke to Acts

• The Gospel of Luke is described in Luke 1:4,3 as:

• “the exact truth about the things” – “in consecutive order, most excellent

Theophilus” (θεόφιλος - “friend of God”)

From Luke to Acts

• The Book of Acts is described in Acts 1:1-3 as a sequel to:

• The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven…

From Luke to Acts

• [ADDING] after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.”

1 Cor. 15:3-8

• “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve...

1 Cor. 15:3-8

• “After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”

Christ’s Message

• NONE of this is coincidental. NONE of this was unintentional or mere chance.

• It was ALL planned in Heaven. [Including the tortuous Cross.]

• In fact, it was ALL Promised for centuries. Including the resurrection and ascension: Hos. 6:1-2; Is. 53, Ps. 16:10; 22:16, etc.

God’s Promise

• The death and resurrection of the Messiah—Jesus—was prophesied over 300 times throughout the Old Testament. And what Luke wants us to know, [and what we want to gain from today’s lesson] is that Jesus had an appointment to meet (really a series of appointments to meet) and they were all in God’s Mind (as Paul said) “BEFORE the foundation of the earth.”

Luke’s Thesis

• What Jesus began to do and to teach while living among us – the Holy Spirit would continue to do, after His resurrection and ascension— through the church, soon to be born at Pentecost…

This was/is the primary message on the Mount of Olives that day.

Other Days on the Mount…

• Earlier, when Jesus met with His Apostles on The Mount of Olives, it was to pray for strength, or to explain the wisdom of waiting for the Master’s return, or to prepare them for His eventual death,

Not this time…

This Day on the Mount…

• It was to reveal to them the fulfillment of God’s Promised Plan and to Commission them [and through them the church] to take His Gospel to every man in every land, that they might obey it, and through it be saved.

“He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved,” Jesus - (Mk. 16:16)

J.W. McGarvey

• Acts 1:2a - “until the day in which having given commandment through the H. S. (*The Great Commission) unto the Apostles whom He had chosen, He was taken up.”

• In this translation, Jesus gives the Apostles the Great Commission on the same day as His ascending into Heaven from the Mt. of Olives.

Jesus and David Wept Here

• Defined by the day, [Jesus last day on the planet], and by the location [the Mt. of Olives], where both David and Jesus “wept,” essentially for the same reason – over lost sons –

it would seem to me to have been impossible for Jesus’ Words not to have penetrated the Apostles souls.

• And I hope our own souls as well.

God’s Plan

• God has ALWAYS had a Plan.

• He Promised us His Salvation IN the Messiah.

• Jesus IS that Messiah.

• He IS the Savior.

• The proof IS His still empty grave.

Our Hope is NOT in a Graveyard

• The Mount today is covered with graves. Many folks are buried there believing it to be the place where Christ will return to earth. But Jesus isn’t coming back to this earth...

“We’re going to meet Him in the air,” (Acts 1:11; 1 Thes. 4:17), and

“thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

Our Hope is IN the Resurrected JESUS

My Jesus isn’t buried in Joseph’s tomb.

He isn’t buried anywhere. He’s alive.

Our Hope is IN the Resurrected JESUS

Our Jesus vacated His grave, so that one day

you might vacate yours.