Mark 13:3
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,
Jesus sat upon the Mount of Olives over against the temple. Peter and James and John and Andrew came to Him there alone and asked Him privately. Their private approach followed His public foretelling in the hearing of the people that the magnificent, apparently indestructible temple would be thrown down with not one stone left upon another, a saying that followed His declaration that their house was left desolate and filled priests, rulers, and disciples with terror and foreboding. They asked when the predicted destruction of the temple would happen and what would be the sign when all these things were about to be fulfilled. Their question also concerned what would be the sign of His coming and of the end of the world.
Their question opens the prophetic discourse in which He answers and teaches them. In that teaching He uses parables to impress on them truths about His second coming. In His answer He does not separate the destruction of Jerusalem from the great day of His coming and the final judgment, but mingles and joins the two events. He mingled the events in mercy because the disciples could not have endured a full sight of the future, leaving them to study out the meaning for themselves.
Thus His words about Jerusalem reach beyond the fall of the temple to the last scenes of earth's history, to the final burning when the Lord punishes the world for iniquity. The whole discourse begun by their question was given not for the disciples only but for those who live in the last scenes of this earth's history.