Matthew 24:4

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray.

This admonition was especially appropriate in view of the amazing answer Christ was about to give to a complex question, the complexity of which was unknown to the apostles and would not be revealed to them except through their experience of unfolding future events. The wisdom of God is seen in the fact that the inadvertent confusion on the part of the disciples with reference to the two events, actually to be separated by thousands of years but appearing to them as scheduled simultaneously, has preserved incontrovertible proof of the authenticity of Matthew's gospel, placing it BEFORE the destruction of Jerusalem. No writer after that event could possibly have arranged this material as does Matthew (see Introduction).