Listening To What We Want to Hear

Mark 13:1-2 (ESV)
And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!" [2] And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down."

Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple. This is why many liberal scholars give Mathew Mark Luke and John such late dates. They “reason” that no one could predict the future. Therefore the “prediction” must have come after the event. It is rather circular, and not something most, even those people who often find themselves quoting the liberal scholars, would agree with if they understood how the conclusion was reached. You have to be a special type of stupid to go along with this reasoning, and that stupid has to be taught.
But today the grand majority of people do believe the future can be told, and one does not need to be God to do it either. The horoscopes at the back of the paper are there for a reason, people follow them religiously. People go on and on about Nostradamus and other figures. I never really have understood the fascination with knowing the future. About as far into the future I want to know myself is what I am having for dinner. Give me something to look forward too.
I do though find it amazing what people will believe when they no longer believe in God or the Bible. I find it even more fascinating that they will make arguments against the bible, which if they themselves believed them, would destroy what they do fall back on. Oh well.
The other option here is, that Jesus really did predict the destruction of Jerusalem. And where as I’d be skeptical of most men being able to do this, I do take a wait and see sort of attitude to it. If it accurately happens, then well the guy is worth giving a listen to. It was the test of a prophet in the Old testament, if a guy said something would happen and it didn’t, then you stoned him. But if it did happen you nkew he was speaking from God. You were supposed to listen to that one.
That didn’t play out well in practice. It makes perfect sense, but the true prophet was never listened too, he never told the people what they wanted to hear. They listened to the false prophets, praised them and lavished great gifts on them because they told the people what they wanted to hear. Funny, you might thing we were living in the days of the Old Testament.