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That's CHVRCHNS q.org, and now let's listen in to today's
teaching. Well, it was called the Great
Disappointment. The Great disappointment based
on his study of Daniel chapter 8 verse 14, William Miller set
dates for Christ's return in 1843 and then in 1844 his
followers grew to 10s of thousands.
Expecting that the event would happen in Northeast United
States and preparing, they sold their property and they gathered
for the end. And when October 22nd, 1844 came
and went, it became known as the Great Disappointment because
Jesus had not come and they had not gone with Him.
Many followers left the movement though.
That's what contributed to the formation of what we know now as
the 7th Day Adventist Church. Again, in 1994, there was a man
who said that the Lord was going to return then.
And then he revised his calculations and claimed that
actually his first calculation was a spiritual judgment that
had occurred. And then he changed it again to
not from 1994, but to May 2011. And then when that came and
went, Needless to say, he left many people confused and
disillusioned when both dates passed without event, even
himself, he was disillusioned and confused because he thought
he had nailed it. And so on and so forth.
Others have done the same thing even up until the end of last
year, predicting this specific and exact time of the Lorde
return. And so the lesson to me is very
clear and should be clear to all of us, that whenever people try
to do what Jesus tells us not to do, it's specifically in saying
this is exactly when Christ is going to return.
It never leads to anything good. It leads to confusion and
embarrassment and hurt. And so now that we've reached
and celebrated the resurrection, you know, we've ended Matthew in
Matthew 28 and we celebrated the Lord in his resurrection, and
he's still alive. And the thing that the church is
waiting for is his glorious return.
What I want to do is I want to circle back and address some
things that we didn't cover as we move through the Gospel of
Matthew before we move into the Psalms in June.
We're going to start our study in book four of the Psalms.
We're going to do a flashback, if you will.
It's one of my favorite parts of movies or books.
When you read something you like, you get to the end of the
movie and you see some favorite scene or you see something that
happened that helps you like put pieces together or like
emphasizes the point. This is one of those moments
where we've seen the resurrection.
We, we know what happens, but now we're going to go back and
see what Jesus has taught regarding his return.
An an anilepsis, that's the fancy word for it in the movies,
an anilepsis. And it may feel strange to do
this, but we want to not go back and pay careful attention for
curiosity's sake. But we want, I want us to study
this because it's for the good of the maturity of our church.
It's good for our faith. And Jesus does not only prepare
his disciples for his death, but he prepares them for the future
to give specific warnings and encouragements about what will
happen after all of these events take place.
And I want us to think carefully as a church about the end of the
age. In the next few weeks, we're
going to talk about the end of the age.
We're going to talk about the mission of the church and why
it's important to be members of a local church engaged in that
mission, waiting for the end of the age.
It's all tied together. And when Jesus speaks about the
future, he does so not to really stir up speculation.
Jesus doesn't want to stir the pot of speculation, but what he
wants to do is He wants to steady our hearts.
Jesus speaks to steady our hearts.
He tells us what to expect, how to live, and what matters most
until he returns. Because this is what He wants us
to, to be prepared for the answers to these questions.
Am I ready for whatever may happen this week?
Am I ready for whatever may happen in the world over the
next 10 years? Am I absolutely certain where my
life will be in eternity? Where will I be in eternity?
The most important question anyone can ever ask, and Jesus's
primary goal in Matthew 24, is not to satisfy our curiosity,
but to prepare us for whatever the future may hold.
We are to be prepared as disciples and also preparing
others as well. Jesus teaches us to hold loosely
to the things that we see and what we have and to be impressed
by the things that we ought to be impressed by.
He says that heaven and earth is going to pass away, but my words
will never pass away. And so Jesus teaches us to keep
our eyes fixed on what matters most and to live with an eternal
perspective, understanding that we don't just live for the here
and now, we're living for an eternity that is ahead of us.
And so like I said, before we leave Matthew behind and we wade
into the Psalms, I want us to sit back with the disciples to
look back and see some of the things that he taught them as he
was going to the cross, things that we didn't get time to
before the Easter season to address.
And I want to hear what Jesus has to say about living
faithfully in the years of head and being very clear about what
Jesus has called us to as his church to believe, to do and
become. So if you're a note taker and
you want to map this out, first we're going to talk in verses,
the first few verses of 2337 through 24.
Two, we're going to see a woe and a wonder, a woe, woe and a
wonder from the disciples and from Jesus and this woe and
wanders for impermanent things. Second, we'll look at the fact
that they raise an important question.
There's an important question they asked Jesus, like when is
this going to happen? That's important.
And then Jesus gives an important answer.
He says you're to be prepared for a few things.
So first let's look at the woe and wonder of impermanent
things. The Jesus is leaving the city.
This is after the triumphal entry and he's leaving the city.
He's clearly saddened that the text reveals in a voice that he
is sad about Jerusalem. Look with me at verse 37 Again
in verse 20, chapter 23, he, he is sad not for himself, but for
the city that he loves. We've already talked about this
and so I don't want to belabor the point, but he tells them
that judgment is coming. Verse 38, your house is going to
be left to you desolate and you're not going to see me until
they say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Jesus came and he left the city and he was not seen or received
by his own people or the world as king.
Jesus is going to come again to that city and it's going to be
unmistakable about who is king. So his first triumphal entry,
he's received by his disciples, but then rejected and and
crucified and murdered and rejected as the king.
But there's going to come a time when Jesus will come back and it
will be unmistakable. Jesus is going to make that very
clear. He's like, yeah, this is not
going to happen again. In Philippians chapter 2, it
says that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
That is going to happen. That's what Paul promises.
That's what Jesus promises. And so that is going to happen.
So be, be forewarned that, you know, Jesus comes back and he
will not be rejected again. And so look at verse one.
After a long day, it says that Jesus left the temple.
So he leaves the temple and he's going to the Mount of Olives,
which is down the valley and up the hill.
And it's called the Mount of Olives because it's filled with
olive trees. It's in the olive Grove.
And so it's a big mountain that overlooks Jerusalem.
And so he's leaving the temple and the, and the disciples like,
look at all this stuff. They're they're coming out and,
and they see all around them. They're just basically, you
know, saying, look, hey, check this out.
Isn't this, this is pretty cool. Herod has been take.
It's taken like 40 plus years to build this thing.
It was probably still in construction.
And they're like, this thing's almost done.
Kind of like when you build a house, not many people build
houses, but have you ever had a house built or an addition built
or something like it's almost done.
You're like, this is this is pretty cool.
Look at all this stuff is what the disciples are essentially
saying. And Jesus does not fault them
for that. He doesn't fault them for that
because by all accounts, the temple was amazing to look at.
Let me show you a picture of what the rendering of the, this
is. This is what the Temple Mount
looks like now. All right.
So the, the, the, the, the mosque is right there.
And that's what from the Mount of Olives looking over into
Jerusalem, that's what it looks like now.
This is what the temple probably looked like in the size and
scope of it. Josephus says that this thing
was blazing white covered with gold.
I mean, it it when the sun hit it, it was it was a shining,
spectacular thing to look at and it was massive.
If you if you rewind it again, faith, you can see the
comparison. We'll just flip charts.
See that that now, then, now, then, now, then, now.
No, no, just kidding. The massiveness of that
structure. Now I, I want you to go now and
I want you to see and I want you to make a mental note.
That's the Holy of Holies. The biggest structure there in
the center is, is the Holy of Holies.
It is the, it is the big. That's the temple right there.
All around it is a temple complex.
You see the smoke rising up. That's the altar, immense.
That's where they were burning animals.
That was the altar that they would sacrifice and then the
smoke would rise up. That smoke was going all the
time. And then the high priest could
only go into that beautiful, magnificent building once once a
year for the atomic sins that was all the complex to surround
that one space. And so what's on it now in the
exact same spot? If you go to the picture now, it
is all gone. And there's a mosque right there
intentionally built that's, that is in all of the tombs that are
buried outside of Jerusalem. We'll get to this later.
But all of the tombs was to, to make the surrounding area of
Jerusalem unclean because that's where they would bury the
bodies. And so that was an intentional
thing. So, so all of these disciples
are looking at this complex and they're saying, look at all this
stuff large iconic buildings do that.
They, they tend to draw our eyes upward and fill us with all the
Colosseum, the pyramids, the Great Wall, castles, the vet.
Yes, remember the vet, the twin towers.
The thing that was so shocking about 911 was not only the
carnage, but also that was the icon of New York.
That was the that was the symbol of power and security.
And all of a sudden they're gone.
That's what big buildings do. The temple in Jerusalem carried
an even greater weight than that because it was, it was not just
a magnificent building, it was, it was the presence of God.
That was the permanent presence of God.
It meant that God's dwelling was there.
His protection was there. And whenever God was in the
midst of his people, there was protection, there was presence.
There was a covenant life among his people.
And for many in Jesus's day, it seemed impossible that that
could ever be destroyed. That temple's not going
anywhere. They even said it's taken 43
years, my man Jesus, to build that.
And you say you're going to tear this temple down in three days.
That's one of the things that they used to, to accuse him of
blasphemy at his trial. And we are vulnerable to the
same mistake. We can do the same thing.
We can look at things that are around us and be like, man,
things aren't going to change until they do.
We put our hopes in impermanent things.
We can become so impressed with what's visible, But what Jesus
does is he lifts his disciples eyes.
He says, you see all this. Look at verse 2.
He says, you see all these, you see this, there will not be left
here 1 stone upon another that won't be thrown down.
He even puts in truly. I say to you, that's an that's
an emphasis for him to say I'm telling the truth truly, truly.
I say to you, it's going to happen.
That's a heavy statement. That's a heavy statement.
It's a, it's a whoa. Like you remember I said there's
whoa and whoa. There's whoa, WHOA, like whoa.
And then there's a whoa, WOE, like sad whoa.
This is both. This is like whoa and whoa.
It shocks them. I imagine it silenced them a bit
because it was such a stunning statement.
And they're walking down the Mount of Jerusalem into the
Mount of Olives. And Jesus has said a lot of
enigmatic things that they don't understand, but this one's
probably one that shocks them. And we know this because it
stirs them to pull him aside privately, which leads us to the
second point and a very important question.
The disciples have just kind of like, heard Jesus say, yes, see,
all this going to be torn down. And what he's saying behind that
is like, basically, like, yeah, God, his presence is not going
to be here anymore. Like that's where the temple of
God is like Jesus, can you, can you double click on that a
little bit for us? Can you expand on that?
Tell us verse 3, when, when will these things be?
And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of
the age? Jesus will repeat that actually
in verse 20, chapter 28. Do you remember all authority in
heaven and earth has been given to me.
Therefore now go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son of the Holy
Spirit. And lo, I will be with you to
the what? To the very end of the age.
Matthew is repeating what Jesus has taught, and the end of the
age is something that they're to be prepared for.
Now, not everyone is on the same page regarding the various
distinctions of the when and the what in this passage, because
the when and the what in here. There are lots of thoughts
regarding the meaning of the temple's destruction.
What will happen at the timing of Christ's return?
When will he return? How will he return?
What happens to the church when he returns?
There's charts and books and and and drawings and all sorts of
things. But the majority of, of
theologians and scholars do understand one thing, and we all
agree about this, is that there are two specific events that
Jesus teaches here. It is the destruction of the
temple and his return. And so in Mark chapter 13, verse
4, if you read it this afternoon, you'll see that the
disciples questioned there it it relates only to the date of the
destruction of the temple. But what Matthew does is he
expands it and he obviously stitches together things that
Jesus has already taught on. And so Matthew expands it to
cover not only this, the destruction of the temple, but
also the sign of his coming and the closing of the age.
And so this last phrase, the sign of your coming and and of
the end of the age is governed. I will nerd out on you.
But when you look at the language in the Greek, it
indicates that the two are one in the, in the structure of the
sentence. It's it's meant to read is like,
oh, this is one event. The coming or the perusia is the
fancy word for that. And the close of the age are
descriptions of the same event. So these disciples felt that the
sign of Jesus coming and the end of the age, they're like right
around the corner in context. Think about this.
What has just happened? He's gone into the city and
people are claiming he's the Messiah.
He's talked about this being the city that he's coming to be
their king. They think that this is right
around the corner to them, his coming, his presence, him being
the the anointed Messiah meant that it was going to be his
public enthronement as king. He was going to step onto the
throne. He was going to be the Messiah
that would take his rightful place.
And when they thought about the end of the age, they're not
thinking 2000 years. They're not thinking like man,
man, Jesus is teaching us about stuff that's going to happen in
what, like 2 thousand 2526, like 1994.
Like they're not thinking that. They're thinking now this is
going to happen now. That's why you see in the in the
gospels, they're like, should we get our swords now, Jesus?
Like should we should we call Thunder down Lord Jesus, Jesus,
are you going to establish yourself now, Even in Acts
chapter 1 after he ascends, they're like, he's risen from
the grave and Jesus has popped in and out and shown himself to
people and the disciples was like, Hey, Jesus, are you going
to restore the Kingdom now? Is it like go time like this is
pretty amazing. I think we could, I think we
could get a solid social media campaign like there you were.
Now you're not like, let's do this.
Let's let's get this thing rolling.
And Jesus is like, no, no, no, no, no.
Now, first of all, their excitement's not wrong.
They should be anticipating that because they knew that the end
brings what they understood to be Shalom.
It's the repairing of all things.
It's, it's the restoration. We should want Jesus to come
back because he's going to bring everything together in order.
Every single sin and death disharm me.
All of it's going to be disbanded, it's going to be
pushed away, and it will live as hobbits, except without the war.
Do you guys like hobbits? Hobbits living like a Hobbit is
good. You just like you drink ale and
Amy. You play games, you're hanging
out together, you're farming. Life is good.
And in the Shire. Many people fear the future,
though. They're afraid of the future
because they don't know the true and living God.
So the future feels threatening. So these disciples are like,
this is a good thing for the Kingdom of Israel and Jesus,
like it is a good thing when I return.
But that's because they know the promises of the true and the
living God. And not everybody knows the true
promises of the true and living God.
And so the future feels threatening.
We feel world wars upon us, the collapse of governments,
extinction, chaos. There's some kind of dystopian
end. History is moving towards
something that some people fear. The earth is getting too hot,
the earth is getting too cold. We're getting too overpopulated.
We're too underpopulated. There's not enough food.
There's too much food. Like we're scared of the future.
And This is why so much money is made on fortune telling and
predictions and speculative projections.
Even even Christian prophecy publishing think feeds on this
same desire. Tell me what's coming.
Tell me what's going to happen. Like tell me what I should be
afraid of, what is going to happen.
But Jesus, friends, does something completely different
than that. He doesn't feed on the fear.
He doesn't feed speculation. Jesus teaches his disciples in
this passage about the future, not to make them speculative,
but to make them steady. Jesus says essentially be
steady, be steady. He's he's in a sense saying,
you've been around me long enough to know that like what
I'm saying is going to help your hearts be steady.
He gives us markers. Jesus gives us promises, Jesus
gives us warnings and assurances.
And he does not tell us everything we want to know, but
he does tell us what we need to know.
He doesn't tell us everything we want to know, but he does tell
us what we need to know. And so.
There are a few things that we can say with certainty.
Christ will come. Again, history is not random.
Judgement is very real. It is coming.
Salvation is sure for those who belong to Jesus.
But there are a few things that we ought not to say with
certainty because we just don't know.
And Jesus is like, no one really knows the specific times.
But here's a few broad strokes. Here's what's going on in the
world, and here's how you church can be steady.
Living peacefully is a very good thing, and fearing how we are
going to die is a normal thing. And ultimately, however, if we
don't live in peace, and if we do die before the Lord comes,
should those things be taken away from us?
Our peace in this world and our lives in this world, they will
not be taken away from us in the next World.
That's, that's the, that's what Jesus is trying to get his
disciples to look at is what he's getting us to look at.
It's like, I want you to look at a different, a different
horizon. Look at a horizon where you are
with me, with the father in a, in a new place where there is
peace and security and I'm king. I want you to look there because
if you look around right now, all you're going to see is war
and chaos and famine and heartache and pain and sorrow.
And I've come to to make that all right.
But don't focus on the things around.
Focus on the horizon. Because as you move through this
world, it will be hard, but I've overcome this world.
You will make it through. You will make it through.
And so he gives them specific warnings about what it is that
is going to come and that the destruction of the temple where
he starts at is not supposed to send them into a tailspin.
So back to the disciples question, when will these things
be? There's two things that matter
here. First, that history is going
somewhere, somewhere Jesus like history is going somewhere on
purpose. And 2nd, Jesus is speaking in
context about the the judgement of Jerusalem.
So Jesus is not going to be speaking vaguely.
He is preparing his disciples for what's going to happen
according to their question. Their question is the temple is
pretty cool, right? Jesus says, Nope, it's going to
be torn down. And they ask, well, when is that
going to happen? And if that's going to happen,
that must be the sign of the end of the age.
And so are you going to come soon in that?
And if we don't keep that perspective, then this passage
quickly becomes very confusing. It's a confusing passage.
But if, but if you can take the perspective of, OK, Jesus is
asking a specific question and he's answering it.
A specific question is being asked and he's going to answer
it. So let's see what his answer is.
Let's see what his answer is. And we and we keep that
perspective. We hold fast to what's clear in
Scripture. Scripture is not written for us
to be confused. It's it can be confusing, but
it's written to be clear to us so that we might be encouraged
so that we might gain truth. An important answer.
Here's Jesus answer. So the question is in verse 3,
when will these things happen? Here's Jesus answer.
Look at verse 4. Jesus answers them.
Make sure no one leads you astray.
So we're, we're looking back, we're flashback, we know that
he's gone to the cross. We know that he's he's buried.
The disciples at this time don't know that, but but you'll see in
the New Testament that they've, they are now operating out of
this teaching because the resurrection has happened.
And so now they're putting, they put all in the New Testament,
all the gospels and all the epistles, they put the pieces
together. And so we're looking back too.
And Jesus is saying, make sure no one leads you astray.
Many are going to come in my name.
They're not going to be under the authority of the Father.
I'm the Christ, I'm I'm the anointed 1.
So first things Jesus saying here is guys, be wise about who
you believe is your savior. Be wise.
How do you know a counterfeit? You ever touch one of those
bills on the on the boardwalk? You've all done it.
I know it. You're walking at Ocean City, NJ
and you look down, you see what looks like $100 bill.
You reach, you look around, you're like, hey, what is this?
You reach down. You know where this is going,
right? You pick it up and you touch it
and you're like, oh, it's an evangelistic track.
It's the $1,000,000. Do you know what?
Did you guys know what I'm talking about?
You touch, You're like, the moment you touch, you're like,
that's not a real dollar bill. You touch real dollar bills
enough. If you're a waitress or a waiter
or you touch money or not on some job, you know what a
counterfeit bill feels like? Jesus is saying be wise about
who comes in my name. The first Jewish Roman war was
known as the Great Revolt, and it took place between 66 and 73
AD and it was basically a major uprising, a Jewish rebellion in
Judea and the Romans eventually quashed.
That's actually what starts the destruction of Jerusalem in 70
AD. But leading up to that, there
were many nationalistic leaders who said that they were the
zealous ones for God's Kingdom. They were called zealots, of
which some of the disciples in Jesus group were zealots.
Simon the Zealot. They were zealous for the
Kingdom of God. And in Acts chapter 5 and in
Acts chapter 21, there are few that are mentioned in that text.
Luke says these are the these are the the men that came and
said that they were going to lead Israel to freedom.
Jesus is saying that's going to happen, don't be deceived.
It's not me guys. You know me, so be wise about
who you let people say they are. Jesus then says be prepared.
Look at verse 6. He says you're going to hear
wars and rumors of wars. Don't be alarmed just because
you hear that there's a war coming.
Just because you see things happening that seem like it's
the end of the age, do not be alarmed, but be prepared.
The end is not yet. The end of this is not yet verse
7 for nation will rise against nation, Kingdom will rise
against Kingdom. There will be famines and there
will be earthquakes, but these are just birth pains.
And, and to note, it's important that in Old Testament prophetic
warnings for cities, they would often use the term birth pains.
Birth pains come and go. They get stronger as they go.
And often what Jesus is doing is he's pointing back to the
prophecies of cities that would be destroyed like Babylon and
Jerusalem, that in that the birth pains are strong and
they're quick and they're repeated.
And Jesus says this is just the beginning of this.
This is the judgment that is to come.
And so Jesus begins with highlighting the primary danger
for them. He says the danger is being LED
astray. Don't be LED astray, walk with
Jesus. If you abide in me, I in my
words, abide in you. You abide in me.
Look the the words of Christ abide in us.
That's how we're not LED astray, friends, if we know the voice of
Christ, Jesus says my sheep know my voice.
When you hear things, they're like, that doesn't sound like
Jesus and it's written in the word.
That's not what Jesus says. Then you know Christ.
That's what it means for him to abide in you.
His word will not lead you astray.
But others will say I've got solutions.
You know, if they're not Jesus solutions, then they're not
solutions at all. Does that make sense?
Do you understand that? And so Jesus says be prepared,
don't be LED astray and and don't jump too hastily to
eschatological conclusions. He's saying don't jump too
quickly, be prepared, but don't jump too quick like this.
The end, the end is coming. Jesus isn't listing signs of the
end, but what he's doing. He's saying, guys, here's some
persons, an event that could probably trouble you and confuse
you, but don't go off the reservation.
Don't just be patient, be prepared for this.
It's just an ordinary part of what's going to unfold
throughout history. And so even as these things have
been evident through history, they were also fulfilled right
after Jesus ascended. Between 30 and 78, these things
happened. There were famines and there
were earthquakes. There were wars.
There were men that came and said they were the Messiah, they
were Christ. You have to understand Jesus was
relatively unknown in the broader area.
Some people like Jesus who like there were people that didn't
know about us, they asked some rabbi got crucified in something
that apparently he rose from the dead.
But there were some people that like Jesus who they didn't know
he was not worldwide famous yet. But what Jesus does now is he
says, look, these things, these are all signs that are
predicting the end and all of Palestine.
This is this is for everyone. He's basically saying this
surrounding area is going to in in encounters things that are
going to look like the end of the age, but it's not.
It's not. This is just a warning about the
destruction of the temple. But then Jesus switches his
focus a little and then he turns to the disciples.
Look at verse 9. He says now in the line he says
then they would, then they will deliver you.
He's looking to the disciples and saying they're going to
deliver you up to tribulation. And while this might be
experienced to future disciples, you have to understand in
context. We're reading a story.
Jesus isn't going to like, he's not looking past the disciples.
Wouldn't it be weird if I was like looking at you and like,
hey, and they're going to, they're going to, they're going
to do stuff to you. He's not looking at you.
He's looking he's they're going to do stuff to you.
Jesus is not looking off into the future.
He's like, no, you right there. I'm, I'm making people
uncomfortable here. There's there's no more people
in the front rows. Holidays, I need people in the
front rows. But This is why, because I look
at people, he's not talking to a future disciples, although
that's true. He's saying, guys, you're going
to be handed over. They're going, you're going to
be hated for my namesake. The immediate context leads us
to stick with the fact that the disciples that he's speaking to
are there in his hearing. They're the ones who are going
to remain as disciples after his ascension into heaven.
They're going to be doing the hard work of evangelism in
Jerusalem. The church is going to be
persecuted by a man named Saul. They're going to put them in
prison. They're going to be rejected.
But eventually that's going to birth the church and it's going
to spread all over. They're scattered in the
persecution of Jerusalem and then they're sent to the rest of
the Roman. Saul becomes Paul and preaches
the gospel to all of the world. Verse 11, he says many false
prophets are going to arise. They're going to come with false
teaching. Do you see that in the New
Testament? Beware of false teaching.
He says. You're going to see that
lawlessness is going to be increased, a love for Jesus and
a love for one another. You're going to see didn't Jesus
warn in the parable was like people are going to receive the
gospel and it's going to look like they're on fire for Christ.
But then when tribulation come, what they die away.
All of the things that Jesus has taught.
He's saying this is going to be your life after I ascend to
heaven. The judgement is coming, but
it's not the end of the age. The judgement on Jerusalem.
Again in context, he's saying Jerusalem, I wish you who had
the God you had the opportunity to be the bearers of good news
to the whole world, but you have you've rejected it.
So now he's teaching his disciples to be the ones who
endure. In verse 13, it says the one who
endures to the end. In other words, when you endure
this initial wave of birth pains, the future birth pains,
you're going to be saved because you're going to hold on to the
truth of the gospel. Do not let go to the gospel
simply because you're going to see armies surrounding
Jerusalem. You need to endure.
Jesus says be faithful, be wise, be prepared, be faithful, do the
work here, the end where it says the one who endures to the end
is not the end, but it's the end to whatever it is we must endure
through. Whether that's a long life
following Christ, a pastor battling for souls of his
countrymen in the heart of Iran, whether it's living in a culture
that is antithetical to the gospel or antagonistic to the
church. This is all normal stuff.
Jesus like this is all normal live faithfully all the way
through endure to the end. He says be at work guys, I need
you to be at work. Be prepared, but also prepare
others and this gospel verse 14 of the Kingdom will be
proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all
nations and then and then the end will come.
And so Jesus here is again, in context, he's not speaking to
the end of the age just yet. He's going to shift and he's
going to talk about that in the next section of the discourse.
But right now he's just talking about what it are, the
implications of the destruction of the temple of God in
Jerusalem, and what is going to happen and what are the signs of
this destruction going to be? And he's just giving it to them.
So you're going to see these things happen.
And he's alluding to a time when Israel's special priority is
going to be over had an opportunity.
And the gospel, which Israel has largely rejected, will be
preached to the world, to the Gentiles.
And the world is this general term of all those who are non
Jews. They would use it as a term for
the Greek world, then for the Roman Empire, and then
subsequently for the whole and then the known world.
And even Paul says that, you know, the gospel is going out to
the whole world and the gospel is being proclaimed to the whole
world because they're free to proclaim it.
Now, this is not an abandonment of the Jewish people.
It's a removal of their special priority.
The temple basically is being removed as a stumbling block.
I would say, I would say that they looked at the temple.
The disciples like, look at this thing.
We are this is incredible. We've got a corner market on
God. But as we've seen in the Gospel
of of Matthew, that they had a very different view of God's
work in the world. They crucified his son.
And now Jesus is saying you no longer have a corner.
I'm the Son, and now I establish my Kennedy.
And so Jew and Gentile. Now the gospel is freely
offered. And where's the temple?
The temple is my people. I will dwell.
My Spirit will dwell on the people.
You do not need to go to Jerusalem to see and meet with
God. You can meet with God in Newtown
Square, PA, right here in this room.
Do you know why? Because His Word is preached and
His Spirit is present. And guess who the gospel is
offered to? It's offered to anyone who would
freely receive it. And so in this first section, we
see that Jesus is preparing his disciples to be steady when
things go awry, When, when they see the destruction of the
temple, that it they're not to panic and they are not to worry,
to be wise. They're to be prepared.
They're to be faithful and they're also to be at work.
And so Christians often ask how, how will we know when all of the
nations have been reached? Like so we've been at work.
And so we're going to see in the next section where Jesus, then
he'll say, he'll turn and say, OK, so now the end of the age,
he's going to say, I've told you about the destruction of the
temple. Now he's going to shift and say
to your second part, the signs of the end of the age, what's
going to happen? He's going to talk about a few
things. But before we move into that, I,
I want you to understand that like Christians will often know
what, when are the signs? I grew up in, I grew up in a
time when I, you know, we were always looking for the
Antichrist and the, and under the rock.
You know, it's like, you know, first it was, it was, it was a
list of people that were Antichrist and when they weren't
the Antichrist and when things didn't happen, they went.
I actually just got frustrated because I, it created an anxiety
amount. I was always looking for the
time like up now. It was a kid growing up in that
and eventually I was like, wait a minute, let let me think this
through what what ought to happen in my heart.
And it just seems pretty clear that Jesus is like what I want
you to do is focus on the work of evangelism and discipleship
and let me deal with the rest. And when I come back, it will be
it will be over. You'll know when it's over when
I come back. And I thought that sounds fair.
George Ladd has a comment and I think summarizes it well and
I'll end with this. He says God alone knows the
definition of terms here. I cannot precisely define who
all the nations are because the promise is that when the gospels
proclaimed to all of the world, then I then the end will come.
The world has heard the gospel. We've we've reached more people
with Christ than anybody in the 1st century did.
But George Ladd says, I only know one thing.
Christ is not yet returned and therefore the task is not yet
done. And when it is done, Christ will
come. Our responsibility as disciples
of Jesus is not to insist on defining the terms.
Our responsibility is to complete the task.
So long as Christ does not return, our work is undone.
And so let us get busy and complete our mission.
My prayer for this church is that that would be our prayer,
that both individually we would be prepared, we'd all be
prepared and preparing others. But as a church, we would
recognize that the work is not yet done.
Until Christ returns, the work is not yet done.
And so we we still have some work to do.
The sermon you've just listened to is a presentation of Church
Newtown Square. To find out more about our
church, check out Church nsq.org, That's CHVRCHNS q.org.
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