You may have noticed that I am limping and wearing an ankle
brace. You may also have noticed this
chair behind the podium. Don't worry, if I need it, I'll
use it. The limping and ankle brace and
a chair are because this Wednesday I severely sprained my
ankle. Wow, severe ankle sprain you
say? How did you incur that injury?
By walking? Yep, impressive.
Kids don't try this at home. I was walking early in the
morning to memorize scripture and pray, as I do almost every
morning when I can walk. It was dark.
It's about 5:30 AM. It was even darker than normal
because Wednesday was very overcast.
So normally that early, there's a little bit of moonlight,
Starlight, you can see a little bit.
But Wednesday morning, you could see nothing.
And I was looking at my phone to try to help me memorize a verse
of Scripture. And my left foot stepped right
onto the edge of a sidewalk pavement and a couple of inches
down into the grass. And my whole weight went
straight down. Didn't catch myself, fell
straight down. Instant pain.
I started crawling. That was smart.
Well, how am I going to get home?
I guess I'll wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no.
So I called my wife. Thankfully, she could come pick
me up right away. Got seen by an orthopedist.
That is a severe sprain, thankfully not broken.
Well there's there's technically something called an avulsion
fracture for all you medical people, but they just say it's a
sprain. So Lord willing, couple of weeks
of a brace, resting it and elevating it as much as
possible. I should be back to normal I
hope. Why did I fall and sprain my
ankle? Because I couldn't see where I
was going. Lord willing, when I heal up and
return to my early morning walking ways on mornings like
that, I will now wear a headlamp.
I have already bought 1. I mean, come on, You see, if
you're ever out early in the morning, you see some of these
walkers, these runners, they've got their little neon vest.
Some, some people have headlamps.
I'm going to be a headlamp guy on those kind of mornings.
I've got it. I've got the batteries.
It's ready for the 1st morning I need it so that I can see where
I'm going. In your life as a whole, can you
see where you're going? Where are you going?
Do you have a desired destination in this life?
Do you have any sense of a destination beyond this life?
If so, what's going to get you there?
Where are you going? Can you see where you're going?
How are you going to get there? This morning we continue our
series in Mark's Gospel with our second of three sermons on Mark,
chapter 13. If you don't have a Bible,
please raise your hand and someone will bring you one.
If you don't have a Bible at home, you can feel free to keep
it, read it. We'd be happy for you to take
that as a gift from us. Don't be shy.
If anybody needs a Bible, put up a hand.
So this morning, Mark 13 verses 14 to 17.
Excuse me, 14 to 27. Mark 1314 to 27.
In these verses Jesus continues teaching his disciples about
both their immediate future and their ultimate future.
This is during the last week of Jesus life.
It's about 30 AD and for most of our passage Jesus teaches about
what some of his disciples will endure in the lead up to the
destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70AD.
But then he turns their attention and ours to the more
distant future. It's a future that still hasn't
arrived, but it will. Please follow along as I read
Mark 13 verses 14 to 27. But when you see the abomination
of desolation standing where he ought not to be, let the reader
understand. Then let those who are in Judea
flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the
housetop not go down or enter his house to take anything out,
and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his
cloak. And alas, for women who are
pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days,
pray that it may not happen in winter.
For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been
from the beginning of the creation that God created until
now, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut
short the days, no human being would be saved.
But for the sake of the elect whom He chose, He shortened the
days. And then if anyone says to you,
look, here's the Christ, or look, there he is, do not
believe it. For false Christs and false
prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders to lead
astray, if possible, the elect, but be on guard.
I've told you all things beforehand.
But in those days after that tribulation, the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars
will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will
be shaken. And then they will see the Son
of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
And then he will send out the angels and gather his elects
from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of
heaven. In this passage, Jesus
prophecies the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70
AD and his own personal return to earth at some later,
unspecified time. Verses 14 to 23 are all about
the destruction of Jerusalem in the Temple, and verses 24 to 27
are all about his personal return from heaven to earth.
So in this passage Jesus teaches us where his first disciples are
heading, which is into a major trial and catastrophe, and where
this whole universe is heading, which is to his personal return.
What should you do in light of Jesus teaching?
Very simple, watch out and wait. Watch out and wait.
Watch out is the main point of verses 14 to 23.
Wait is the main point of verses 24 to 27.
Sermon will have two points. Each point will have 3 sub
points. The first point will be much
longer point #1 watch out. That's Jesus's main take away
for us in verses 14 to 23. Watch out.
Watch out for what? First, watch out for the sign
Jesus promised. Watch out for the sign Jesus
promised. If you were here last week,
you'll remember that in verse 4 of this chapter 4 of Jesus,
disciples asked him when the temple will be destroyed, which
he's just predicted, and what's the sign that it is about to be
destroyed. Then as we saw in verses 5 to
13, Jesus tells them a whole bunch of things that are going
to happen that will not be signs of the temples coming
destruction. These things are all going to
happen, but they're not going to be a sign that the destruction
of the temple is near. Now here in verse 14, he finally
comes to the sign they're asking for, verse 14.
But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he
ought not to be, let the reader understand.
Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
The point here is that this abomination of desolation is the
sign that the temple's about to be destroyed.
Judea is the region that the city of Jerusalem is in.
Jesus is addressing those who will be present there at that
time, and he's saying when you see this, it's time to get out.
When this happens, this is the sign.
This is go time. But what is the abomination of
desolation? The phrase comes from the Old
Testament prophetic book of Daniel.
Daniel uses this phrase three times in print.
Prophecies, predictions about the future Daniel 927-1131 and
12/11 The phrase describes someone who does unholy anti
religious things in and to God's temple.
For instance, one of those passages Daniel 1131 talking
about a coming ruler. Forces from him shall appear and
profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular
burnt offering, and they shall set up the abomination that
makes desolate. These prophecies found an
initial fulfillment in 168 BC. That is just about 200 years
before Jesus is teaching his disciples here.
Antiochus Epiphanes was the king of the Selyucid Empire, which
included Judea and its territory.
Antiochus adopted the Greek title Epiphanies, which means
God manifest. He viewed himself as Zeus
Incarnate. He invaded Judea.
He tried to force the Jews living in Jerusalem and Judea to
adopt Greek customs and worship Greek gods.
In 168 BC he came to Jerusalem. He plunder the temple.
He took away all the sacred vessels of the temple to sell
off and finance his war campaigns.
When he entered the temple, he set up an altar to Zeus over the
top of the altar of burnt offerings to the Lord, and he
sacrificed a pig there, an unclean animal.
It was a deliberate, knowing, informed effort to give the most
possible offense to the Jewish people and to the God of Israel
and the resistance that that got rid of him and cleared out the
temple and restored at the true worship was led by the Maccabees
and came to be memorialized in the festival of Hanukkah every
year. So for 200 years before the
before Jesus talking to his disciples, all observant Jews
would have celebrated how God delivered his people from this
original abomination of desolation.
That's what they would have thought about year by year, how
someone desecrated the temple and God preserved his people and
God purified his own worship. And so we got the temple back
and true worship back. So when Jesus disciples heard
him quote this phrase from Daniel, they would have thought
of some kind of gross act of sacrilege committed against the
Lord and especially against the temple.
I have to be transparent. I am not certain what the
abomination of desolation is. I'm sorry, I did my best.
It had to be something occurring close enough in time to the
destruction of the temple to serve as a warning sign to get
out of Jerusalem. Scholars disagree about it.
There are a lot of theories. I think the most likely
candidate is that in 68 to 69 AD, the Zealots, who were the
kind of resistance party against the Romans on behalf of the
Jews. At that time, they were leading
the Jewish opposition to Rome. They appointed their own high
priest who did not have proper Levitical descent, and he
started doing worshippy stuff in the temple, or rather false
worshippy stuff in the temple. That would seem to fit Jesus
language of verse 14 where he says he is standing where he
ought not to be. Only a Levitical priest has the
right to stand there and minister in the temple.
This guy doesn't. He's standing where he ought not
to be. And that would have been a big
deal. It would have circulated, you
know, that the news of it would have circulated quickly.
So I'm not 100% committed to it. I think that's what it could
have been. Regardless though of any
uncertainty about who or what this was, Jesus is practical
point to his first followers is clear when you see this happen,
run away, get out of the city. He gives more specific
instructions on that in verses 15 to 18.
And we have to remember that this wouldn't have just been
like, you know, two people walk in and, you know, try to like
take over the temple. This is the entire force of the
Roman army coming to destroy Jerusalem and destroying the
temple, the grandest, biggest structure as part of that.
So what are they escaping? They're not just escaping from
like a religious dispute where a couple of people are in some old
building. They're escaping from total
annihilation, an army coming in and totally wiping out the city
versus 15 to 18. Let the one who is on the
housetop not go down nor into his house to take anything out,
and let the one who's in the field not turn back to take his
cloak. And alas, for women who are
pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days,
pray that it may not happen in winter.
Houses in Judea had flat roofs. Houses were often cramped and
poorly ventilated. So it might actually be cooler
up on the roof where a breeze can blow.
It's kind of like a bonus room. People would spend a lot of time
up there. You could even sleep there.
So what does Jesus mean by not go down if you're on the
rooftop? What does he mean not go down?
I think he means don't go back down into the house.
There would have been an inside staircase and an outside
staircase. This is so urgent.
You don't even use the inside staircase to go down and get
anything. You're upstairs, you go outside,
you run. I think that's what Jesus is
saying. It is just possible that houses
were so close together that he envisions people fleeing rooftop
to rooftop kind of 1st century parkour.
I just had to say it is distracting is in my head.
I didn't mean to. Some scholars think that's what
that means. I think he probably just means
go down the outside staircase. Anyways, that one's for free.
The flight is so urgent you don't even go get your
belongings. That's the point about the
instruction to being in the fields, right?
If you're working in the fields, you might, you might put put a
heavy cloak down at the edge of the field and go walk as you're
doing your work. Quarter mile, half mile,
whatever it is. Well, well, don't go back to
quarter mile or half mile to get your cloak.
Just run. That's why it's so hard for
pregnant women and nursing mothers.
If you're escaping from a siege, it is hard to get babies to go
anywhere quickly. All parents of infants know
this. If there's that type of
hardship, you're in that much worse of a position.
Why pray that it may not happen in winter?
Because in that region, it just about only rained in winter.
You'd have dry drought, no rain almost at all.
And then you'd get kind of rain that would lead to flash floods,
which means a empty Creek bed could become an impassable river
instantly. You don't have to be fleeing,
trying to afford a raging river. So in these verses, he Jesus
tells his disciples the sign to watch out for and what to do
when it comes. And the sign did come.
Roman armies in circle Jerusalem and then laid waste to it.
The sign came. Then came destruction.
Jesus's words came true 40 years later.
What are we supposed to learn from that?
Jesus's predictions are certain. They're not guesses.
They're not estimates. They're not projections based on
curves and trend lines. They're certain.
Jesus promises are true. Jesus knows the future because
Jesus controls the future. To us, the future is a lot like
the darkness of 5:30 AM on a day with heavy cloud cover.
We can't see what's coming. We can't see where we're going
unless God reveals it to us. God's Word is our headlamp.
What else are we to watch out for?
Second, watch out for trials and mercy.
Watch out for trials and mercy. That's the substance of Jesus
teaching in verses 19 and 20, Verse 19.
For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been
from the beginning of the creation that God created until
now and never will be. Verse 19, in those days, what
days is Jesus talking about? He's talking about Rome's siege
against and conquest of Jerusalem.
He's talking about the years from 66 to 70 AD.
And he's saying that this is going to be a worse ordeal, a
worse trial than anything they can imagine.
Jesus expression here that the tribulation is worse than
anything before or after. It's a fairly common prophetic
idiom. You see it in the Old Testament.
It's a hyperbolic way of saying it's going to be really, really,
really, really bad. We're not meant to to sort of
take this as literally as possible and try to weigh up and
count well the number of people died or the amount of suffering.
Can we quantify? Was this worse than the
Holocaust? No, it's, it's just saying this
is going to be awful. Also, we know from history that
the events of the Roman war against Jerusalem were truly
horrific. The historian Josephus, who
wrote a history of the events, reports that around 1,000,000
Jews were killed. Something like 6000 were
crucified. The siege created such a severe
famine that some people resorted to cannibalism.
But there was mercy amid the severe trials.
Look at verse 20. And if the Lord had not cut
short the days, no human being would be saved.
But for the sake of the elect whom he chose, he shortened the
days. When Jesus says that God has cut
short the days, he means that God set a limit to the trial in
advance. He sovereignly limited the
length and intensity of what Rome would do to Jerusalem.
He did that to preserve some people alive.
If he hadn't, they could have literally killed every single
person there. So when Jesus says no human
being would be saved, he's using saved in the sense of being
preserved alive, having your life saved.
Why did God limit this suffering?
Jesus says for the sake of the elect whom he chose, God showed
temporal mercy to some for the sake of those who would inherit
eternal life. God showed kindness amid
horrific circumstances to some for the sake of those whom he
determined to show everlasting kindness.
God is sovereign over history. God sets limits to even the most
severe suffering, and one reason he does so is to show mercy to
his chosen people. Even when God afflicts us
sorely, He cares for us compassionately.
In judgement, He mingles mercy. Even when he treats us severely,
He mixes in kindness. If you were a first generation
Christian living through the siege of Jerusalem, you would
have been sorely tempted to think God has forgotten me, God
is against me, God hates me, and you'd be wrong on all counts.
Amid the horrific hardship, God was providing just what you
needed to be sustained to survive.
And to live to trust in him another day.
Notice how Jesus does not sugarcoat any of this.
Jesus is the most perfect practitioner of truth in
advertising. He's not hiding any hard news
from his disciples. Instead, he's opening their eyes
as wide as he can get them to go.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, you need to know that
following Jesus will not deliver you an easy or pain free life.
If you decide to follow Jesus, you will continue to suffer
natural hardships like, oh I don't know, spraining your
ankle. You will also then begin to
suffer new spiritual hardships that come to you because you are
a Christian. When you sign up to follow
Jesus, he tells you that it will cost you.
He warns you to count the cost in advance.
He tells you what you're in for. And His promise is He is himself
enough to see you through. He is Himself worth all that
suffering. What these first generation
believers in Judea would face is an extreme example of what all
believers face. As the Apostle Paul teaches in
Acts 1422, through many tribulations we must inherit the
Kingdom of God. Every Christian's life will be
weighed down with trials and suffering.
Every Christian will pass through hardship after hardship
on their way to heaven. The whole point of Christianity
is that the joyful reward that's coming to every believer
infinitely outweighs all the suffering you will experience.
Now. That is the wager on which
Christianity stands or falls. That is what makes it worth it
to be a Christian or not. Not anything you will experience
in this life. So there are many blessings and
joys and consolations, but you do not find your reward here.
What makes it worth it is what's coming.
What else does Jesus tell us to watch out for #3 watch out for
false hopes. Watch out for false hopes.
Like anybody promising that your reward is here and now, or that
your full deliverance is here and now, those would be false
hopes. This is Jesus warning to us in
verses 21 to 23. Look first at verses 21 and 22
and then if anyone says to you, look, here's the Christ or look
there he is, do not believe it. For false Christs and false
prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders to lead astray
if possible, the elect. These false prophets and false
messiahs would have tried to convince people that the
unsettling events currently taking place meant that Jesus
had actually returned when he hadn't, right?
That's that phrase. Look, look, here he is.
Here's the Christ. Look, there he is.
They're trying to say he's already come back, but he
hasn't. These false prophets were
promoting false hopes. It's very much like the false
prophets in Jeremiah's day that Chris helped us consider last
Sunday night. These false prophets promised a
deliverance that was not coming then and now.
They promised a present rescue from present distress.
That's not what Jesus promises. These false teachers performed
signs and wonders in an effort to lead astray if possible.
The elect false teachers worked real miracles.
Satan has real spiritual power. Not every supernatural work is
from God. And these false teachers
performed real miracles in an attempt to deceive.
They tried to look as much as they could, like true biblical
prophets, in order to trick people, to cheat them, to scheme
them. I recently fell for a scheme.
I received a text message that said it was from the North
Carolina Department of Transportation.
It informed me that I had a small fine assessed because of a
toll that I had not paid. I was particularly susceptible
to this scheme because I actually had had a toll get
billed to me by mail recently. It was like 8 bucks.
I had a little trouble paying. It was the most annoying thing
in the world. I spent 1/2 hour trying to pay
an $8 fine and I thought, you know the toll where they bill
you by mail? And I thought, wait a minute
when I got this text like did did I actually not pay that
after all? Now they're saying there's going
to be a a fine or a penalty or something and it's going to get
bigger and bigger. OK, OK, well I guess I'll just
go pay this. So I tap the link, I input my
payment information, it doesn't seem to work.
What happened? OK, that's weird.
I guess I'll try to go online take care of this again.
Like my 8th effort to pay this $8 toll.
I go online and the online system does not find the toll in
question. The thing I'm trying to pay
doesn't exist on their website. Well you can probably guess what
happened next. In a day or two some charges
started getting posted to my debit card.
Multiple $600.00 payments to a credit card that was not mine.
Thankfully my bank caught it instantly.
I got a text right away. Do you recognize these charges?
I sure don't and I sure know where that's from.
Thankfully my bank had my back. You know it's the hassle, right?
You got to cancel your debit card, wait, get a new one in the
mail, go put it on all this stuff.
You pay for automatic bills and stuff online.
I still had our water bill I still had to finally fix the
other day because they I forgot to update it.
Whatever, I got schemes now. I don't know if it was because
of this incident, but I recently received an e-mail from my bank
about how to watch out against scams.
The e-mail informed me to beware of bank impostors, to look out
for false ticket sales and investment scams, and to talk to
friends and family. It warned me about people
claiming there's an urgent need to withdraw funds.
It warned of people promising get rich quick schemes, and it
suggested to me other people who I should be careful to look out
for. Quote while everyone is at risk,
young adults fall for scams more often while older adults lose
the most money. False teachers are scammers.
They look as much like the real thing as they can to try to
trick you into believing them. So guard your own heart and
mind. And like my bank e-mail told me,
watch out for others too. Jesus warnings are his security
system. He has your back.
He is trying to help you catch false teachers before you give
them your payment information, whether spiritually speaking or
frankly, literally. Brothers and sisters, watch out
for yourselves and watch out for each other.
Protect your own heart and mind against false teaching by being
devoted to learning the truth. When you hear something claimed
as true, figure out where that person says it comes from in the
Bible and go look it up. Grow in discernment.
Grow in testing all the teaching you hear against God's Word.
Grow in detecting spiritual scams and helping other people.
Watch out for them. Note that in verse 22 Jesus says
that false teachers will try if possible to lead the elective
stray. When he says if possible.
Jesus is saying that's these teachers intent.
But it isn't going to happen. God will not let any of his
people be LED astray into apostasy by attaching themselves
to a false prophet or false Christ.
God will preserve his people. So be confident in him, and at
the same time recognize that God uses means to preserve our
faith. Means like these warnings, means
like Jesus's security system to inform our faith of what to look
out for. In the very same verse, this
passage teaches both that God preserves us and that we must
preserve ourselves by heeding His warnings.
Both are true, but what is it that makes it impossible for the
elect to be LED astray? It's God's grace, It's God's
preservation, it's God's protection.
That's how we won't be LED astray.
In verse 23, Jesus concludes not only this warning, but his whole
discussion of the coming destruction of the temple.
This is a big bookend. It brackets the section that
started in verse 5 and goes all the way to verse 23.
Actually, look at verse 5. Flip back there the beginning of
the speech and Jesus began to say to them, see that no one
leads you astray. Then in verse 23 Jesus says be
on guard, I've told you all things beforehand.
He began to say, see that no one leads you astray.
Then he says be on guard, I've told you all things ahead of
time. He's told them all they need to
know about the coming destruction of the temple.
He's told them all they need to know for them to persevere
faithfully through that horrific trial.
Why does Jesus teach all this? It's to help his first disciples
and us to be on guard to watch out kids in the congregation.
When you study a passage like this, the main point is not to
figure out all the details that seem weird.
What on earth is the abomination of desolation?
That's a valid question. That's a legitimate question.
It's good to study your Bible and do your best to figure it
out. It's also a hard question, and
it doesn't really get you to the main point of the passage.
The main point of the passage is to be on guard, to watch out, to
live your whole life in such a way that you are ready for Jesus
to come back at any time. That's the main point.
Watch out for trials, watch out for temptations, watch out for
anything that could pull your heart away from Jesus.
Jesus told his disciples and us what would happen before it did.
So we should have strengthened trust in Jesus word.
That should strengthen our confidence in his word.
It should strengthen our submission to his sovereignty.
It should remind us that even in the midst of the worst trials,
Jesus knows us, Jesus cares for us, and Jesus will sustain us.
Jesus teaching in this passage also reminds us that trials are
not an accident and trials are not a sign that God does not
love you. Terrible things might happen to
you. None of them is a reason to
conclude that God doesn't love you.
Terrible things might happen to you.
None of them is a reason to question God's goodness or his
promises or the reward He is preparing for you.
Instead, remember, God disciplines those whom He loves.
What does Jesus want you to do amid trials and false teachers
and all kinds of suffering, He wants you to watch out.
Watch out for threats and watch out for His mercy.
Now, when I've just been using this phrase, watch out all this
time, it could sound a little passive.
Most of the time when we think about watching, it's like
watching TV, watching a game. You might put the game on and
not even really pay attention to it.
You're watching a game, but you're not even watching it.
To illustrate what I mean by watch out, I will describe for
you two ways in which our family's dog, Rusty watches out.
Rusty's way of watching. Number 11 of Rusty's favorite
things to do is to sit in our front yard as close to the
street as possible, lie there perfectly still in content, and
watch people go by. He will sometimes escape from
his proper place in the backyard to go down to the very front of
the front yard so you can just watch people.
He's not barking, he's not hurting anybody.
He just wants to see who's there and maybe some nice neighborhood
kid will walk by and give him some pets.
That is Rusty's way of watching #1 Rusty's way of watching #2
every time a delivery person or tradesperson comes to our door,
Rusty detects them by scent or sound long before they get to
the door. He runs right behind the front
door and he starts barking his head off and he does not stop
barking if it's a delivery person until they've left,
gotten into their delivery truck and driven away.
Unfortunately, if it's a repair person, a tradesperson, he
doesn't stop barking for the entire time they're doing their
job. I'm so sorry.
I try to crate him. I I put him outside on a leash
around the basketball hoop. I do whatever.
He will not stop barking his head off.
He remains vigilant. It is not my favorite part of
his personality. Four times in this chapter,
Jesus uses the same Greek word bleppo as a command.
Verse 5, verse 9, verse 23, verse 33.
Same Greek word. It gets translated differently
depending on the context. It means watch out.
Watch out for danger and deception.
Watch out for false teaching. Be on guard.
So in verse 23, when Jesus says be on guard, he is exhorting you
to watch out. Like Rusty's second way of
watching. Not because a delivery person or
tradesperson is going to harm your family, but because false
teachers really can. Because false prophets really
will. I wish I could just let Rusty
know, hey, hey, boy, it's OK. You don't need to worry about
these people. They are friends.
We try that. But for us as Christians, we do
need to stay vigilant. Vigilant for trials and the
impact they'll have on us. Vigilant to spot signs of God's
mercy amid those trials, which he's announced we're going to
see. And vigilant against anything
that would lead us away from believing in Jesus and obeying
His commands. Be on guard and stay on guard
until Christ calls you home to Him or until He comes to you,
whichever comes first. Because if you believe in Jesus,
He is your destination .2 More briefly, wait, wait.
That's the main thing verses 24 to 27 would have us do.
Wait for what First? Wait for the new creation.
Wait for the new creation? Those that's in verses 24 to 25.
But in those days after that tribulation, the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars
will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will
be shaken. This language sounds like the
end of the world. It sounds like the dissolution
of the universe as we know it. One challenge in interpreting
this language is that lots of Old Testament prophecies use
language exactly like this to describe events that are not the
end of the world. One obvious example is Isaiah
1310. It's almost identical to our
passage, for the stars of the heavens and their constellations
will not give their light. The sun will be dark and it's
rising, and the moon will not shed its light.
What is Isaiah 13 talking about? It's talking about judgment on
the king of Babylon that happened in the 6th century BC.
That was an end for some. It was not the end for all.
So what does Jesus language here refer to?
To answer that question, we need to work on a couple others.
The first is when does all this happen?
Jesus introduces verse 24 with two phrases that mark its time
in those days after that tribulation.
The phrase after that tribulation tells us explicitly
that these next events he's about to describe do not
describe what happens to Jerusalem in the Temple in 70
AD. It describes something that
happens after, not the same event, but something later.
But what does that phrase in those days mean?
I think the rest of the passage clarifies by the content of what
Jesus promises in the following verses.
He's talking about His personal return to earth.
He's talking about people seeing Him.
He calls himself the Son of Man because he's fulfilling Daniel's
prophecy from Daniel Chapter 7. He's talking about people seeing
Him coming in power and glory. That is not metaphorical.
That is not some type of spiritual insights.
That is seeing with your eyes something you have never seen
before. That's what he's talking about
in the rest of these verses. So he's talking about coming to
Earth. He's talking about bringing
people into his physical presence.
He's talking about accomplishing final judgement and bringing
about a new creation. He's talking about the final
end, the ultimate end, the end for everyone, the end for the
whole universe. This is the grand finale.
This is the goal of all of God's plans.
This is the culmination of everything.
So that's what the rest of these verses are about, which helps us
answer the question of what these cosmic phenomena mean.
On the one hand, we should not take them in a strictly literal
sense or a hyper literal sense. It's not like stars will start
homing in on Earth like giant homing missiles and then fall to
Earth and blast our planet to smithereens, right?
If you try to read this as literally as possible, stars
fall to Earth. Does that mean, you know, the
Orion constellations going to gather up and sort of come at us
and we'll know it's, it's, it's not that literal.
What's he saying? He's saying the whole created
order will bear witness to his coming.
He's saying the normal patterns that seemingly go on forever and
endless cycles will stop. Everything, even the cosmic
elements, will halt, will snap to attention, and will honor the
Creator who's returning to his creation.
It will be 1 giant sign to herald Christ's immediate
return. When you see the heavenly bodies
a stop working like they normally do.
Jesus is coming right now. That's his point.
But then what do we do with the phrase in those days?
In those days makes it sound like this happens right after
the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
But of course, here we are almost 2000 years later and it
still hasn't happened yet. I think the best way to resolve
this difficulty is to recognize that Jesus is presenting in 2D
what will eventually happen in three DI think he's setting two
things side by side. Side by side that will actually
happen far apart in those days does refer to the prophetic
future. He's presenting God's plans as a
seamless fabric. 70 AD is not the second coming and final
judgement, but it does preview the second coming and final
judgement. It's part of the same prophetic
tapestry. You can picture it like this if
you're driving W through Colorado.
It's as flat as Kansas for hundreds of miles.
Eventually the Rockies shoot up over the horizon.
From far away it looks like a a flat wall of mountains.
Like if you walked up to it, it would look like a Hollywood set
of mountains. All in 2D.
But of course, once you get close enough, you see that one
peak is far behind another, separated by dozens of miles, or
in our case, separated by at least about 2000 years and
counting. You could call this prophetic
perspective, or you could use an image from photography and call
it prophetic foreshortening. Jesus is setting these events
side by side without intending to provide a precise timeline.
What's Jesus main point? It's that we are to wait for a
new creation. When he returns in person,
creation will cease its usual operations to bear witness to
his coming. And that would be a preparation
for his work of making all things new.
Second, wait to see Jesus's power and glory.
Wait to see Jesus power and glory.
That's what he promises in verse 26.
And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with
great power and glory. He's saying everybody will see
him. He's saying the second coming
will be unmistakable. That phrase coming in clouds
from the prophecy of Daniel 713, which talks about one like a Son
of man being invested with divine power.
Jesus came the first time in weakness.
He'll come the second time in power.
Jesus came the first time in humility.
He'll come the second time in glory.
Jesus came the first time to the cross.
He'll come the second time to claim his crown.
All those reversals, all those striking contrasts are because
when he came the first time, he came to save.
He came to humble himself. He came to become the servant of
all. God created us to know him, love
him, and serve Him. And yet each of us has refused
to serve Him. We would rather serve ourselves.
We would rather do whatever we can to get others to serve us.
We sure don't want to serve God as if he gets to decide all that
we do, as if he gets to set the terms for everything in my life,
as if whatever he says I'm supposed to not do or do, I'm
just going to have to do it because he says so.
Where's the fun in that? Yeah, that is the essence of
what the Bible calls sin, service of self.
Instead of being willing to serve God, and God is merciful
and just, He came. He sent Jesus to come to show
mercy to us by dying on the cross to pay for our sins, and
in that very act He, God satisfied His own justice by
Jesus suffering the penalty due for the sins of everyone who
would turn from sin and trust in Him.
Jesus paid the price to welcome you back into a right
relationship with God if you will simply believe in Him.
And then three days later, he rose from the dead.
He triumphed over death. He entered into a new, eternal,
indestructible life, a life that nothing can end, a life that
death cannot touch. And so now he invites, Now He
summons, now He commands everyone on this planet to turn
from sin and trust in Him. That's what it means to become a
Christian. That's what it means to be right
with God. That is the way you can be right
with God today if you don't trust in Jesus, if you simply
turn from sin and trust in Him. This second coming of Jesus in
power and glory is the conclusion to the true story
that Mark is telling. The end of the story will happen
outside of the story. We're still living in this
story. We're still waiting for it, and
it'll be more than worth it. Jesus's second coming is what
confirms all his teaching, what validates all his demands, and
what fulfills all His promises. Jesus's second coming will
finally put everything into perspective.
Sometimes people scoff at the Christian hope of Christ second
coming as if it's just delusional pie in the sky stuff.
As if we're just dreaming, making it up.
That's a nice story. It makes you feel better about
your sad life. But we're simply taking Jesus at
His word. He promised it, so we trust it.
We who wait for Christ's second coming are the ones who have our
eyes open. We're the ones you can see in
the dark. We can look through present
darkness and see an infinitely bright future.
We know where we're heading, and we know where this whole
universe is heading. It's those who deny Christ's
coming who are dreaming and refusing to wake up.
It's those who think that everything will simply go along
as it is who are deluding themselves.
So wait patiently to see Jesus's power and glory.
What will happen when you do? Third, wait to be with him
forever. Wait to be with Him forever.
Believer in Jesus, what will Jesus do for you when He comes?
He'll gather you into His presence.
Look at verse 27. And then he will send out the
angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of
the earth to the ends of heaven. There's so many features of
verse 27 and verse 26 before it that bear witness to Jesus's
divine equality with the Father. In other words, these two verses
bear witness to the truth of the Trinity.
How do they do that? In verse 26, Jesus comes with
the clouds in the Old Testament. That's something only God does.
Coming with clouds is a sign of God's divine power.
It's a sign of God himself revealing himself.
In verse 26, Jesus comes with power and glory.
Those are divine attributes. Jesus comes revealing that he
has the glory that God alone has.
And verse 27, Jesus sends out his angels.
Note the possessive pronoun. The angels belong to him.
They report to him. They do his will.
Who gets to command angels? God alone.
In verse 27, Jesus gathers his elect.
He's the one who chose them. He's their possessor and master.
He's their Lord and Savior. The elect are his.
And in verse 27, He comes to gather his elect to himself.
What does that mean? It means that fellowship with
Him is the goal of everything. It means a being with Jesus is
the goal of Oliver and emptive history.
In Old Testament prophecies, the Lord promises to gather His
people to himself. How does he do that?
In the person of His Incarnate Son, by his return from heaven.
Jesus possesses divine perfections that only God has.
Jesus performs divine works that only God does.
He does what God himself promises to do himself.
There's only one God, and that God eternally exists as three
persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are
equal in every divine perfection and deserve equal honor, glory,
and worship. If you're a Christian, what are
you waiting for? You're waiting for Jesus to
gather you into His arms. You're waiting for Jesus to
bring you into perfect security in His presence forever.
You're waiting for Jesus to perfectly satisfy you in Him
forever. Whatever suffering you
experience will end forever, either when you die or He
returns, whichever comes first. When Jesus gathers you into His
presence, there'll be no more trials, no more threats, no more
dangers, no more disappointments, only perfect
satisfaction in Him that is worth waiting for.
If you trust in Jesus, you are not walking blindly through pre
dawn darkness like I was on Wednesday.
You know where you're heading and you know where this universe
is heading. God has revealed all that to you
and more. God has shown you where you're
heading and He's the one taking you there.
All along the way, He promises to care for you.
He'll care for you through instruction and discipline.
He'll care for you by preserving you.
He'll care for you by protecting you, and He'll care for you by
limiting your trials so that they do not destroy you.
One day. He'll care for you by gathering
you into His presence from wherever you may be.
If you're a believer in Jesus, where are you heading?
Into the arms of your Savior. What's keeping you on that path?
The sustaining grasp of the arms of your Savior.
How can you know He'll welcome you with open arms?
Because He stretched out those arms for you on the cross.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for lighting our path through trials, through tribulation,
through hardship, by revealing to us the glorious final end we
have to look forward to. Father, we pray you'd sustain us
in faith. Pray you'd strengthen us, pray
you'd encourage us with these truths.
And we pray for all those who have not entrusted themselves to
Christ that they would in faith and repentance, in Jesus name,
Amen.