The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Sermon: The Gathering of the Elect (Mark 13:27)

The Gathering of the ElectSunday, April 28th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 13:24-31
24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. 26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. 28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: 29 So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. 30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. 31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for these words of Christ, which are reliable, which are trustworthy, and which are supremely authoritative. Please order our lives in accord with Your Word, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
When you first professed faith in Jesus Christ, and when you were baptized into the Triune Name, what changes took place inside of you? What changes took place outside of you, in your relationships, your “network,” the people and places you frequented?
At conversion, many changes take place, some are visible, some are invisible, some are inside of you, some are outside of you, some are immediately noticeable, and some changes you only notice after many years. The Bible speaks of many diverse effects of God’s love and His saving power amongst His people. And while every person may experience God’s grace a little differently, there is one common effect and change that is true for ALL of God’s elect. And that is a new presence of faith, hope, and love for God that did not exist before.
At conversion, God infuses into our nature, He breathes into our soul, three supernatural virtues: faith, hope, and love. And it is through our use of these virtues that many other spiritual benefits are realized.
Paul says in Ephesians 2:1-3, that before conversion we were, “dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”
So prior to your conversion, you were enslaved to the world, the flesh, and the devil. But then Jesus Christ came and as it says in 1 John 3:8, “For this purpose the Son of God was made manifest, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” Or as we sing in that great hymn, I Know That My Redeemer Lives, “He lives to crush the fiends of hell, glory hallelujah!”
And so Jesus Christ came to conquer, and he conquered by dying and rising so that you also could die and rise again with Him. But salvation does not stop there, Jesus Christ also ascended into heaven (Acts 1), he was enthroned and now reigns supreme. And why? So that you also might ascend to heaven, and sit down and reign with him.
This is exactly what Ephesians 2 goes on to say, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
Now have you ever wondered, “How exactly can that be true of me?” In what sense has God made us to sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus when our bodies are clearly still down here on earth?
Or, in what sense can Paul say to the Hebrews in Hebrews 12:22-23, “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.”
In what sense is it true what Joe Stout likes to say that “on Sundays we go to heaven?”
The answer is found in that phrase of Ephesians 2:5, “He made us alive together with Christ.” What was made alive? It’s not referring your body, it’s referring your soul (the thing that was dead in trespasses and sins and separated from God). And what did God do to your soul to resurrect it? He breathed into your soul three supernatural gifts of faith, hope, and love. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
So it is by faith, hope, and love that we are able to ascend to heaven, and sit with Christ in heavenly places, and boldly approach the throne of grace and find mercy.
Is through these three activities of the soul that our spirit really ascends to heaven and sits and reigns with Christ. This is why Paul says in Colossians 3, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. [And how do you do that? He goes on and says…] Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
This is what it means to be a spiritual man (a new creation) and no longer carnal or worldly. It is when your heart, your soul, your mind, and you spirit has God as its supreme object of faith, hope, and love.
This is also how the promise of Jesus is true for you when he says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” He is with your spiritually.
Or his promise in John 14:23, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” The infinite and omnipotent Triune God really comes and makes His home inside of you, when you love Him with all your being. This is something only a spiritual person can understand.
For as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14-13, “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned…[but we receive that] “which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”
And so it is of the nature of faith, hope, and love to unite us to the object of our faith, hope, and love. And therefore, if Christ is in heaven, ruling and reigning, and Christ is the object of your trust, and the object of your hope, and the one you most adore, then truly it is said of you, that you are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
At present we are only there spiritually (by faith), and in hope we are there bodily (we look to that day of resurrection). And one day our faith and hope shall give way to the sight of our true love, and when we see Him, we shall be made like Him (1 John 3:2).
Now why all of this rant about faith, hope, and love, when we are in the middle of Mark 13? The reason is because our passage this morning is Jesus describing the real historical gathering of the saints to sit down and reign with Him in heaven. And it is this cosmic transfer of power from the principalities and beasts of the old world to “the Son of Man” (Christ and His people), that should increase our present faith, hope, and love towards God.
If you believe what Revelation 1:6 says that Christ “hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father,” and if you believe what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And if you believe that we are seated with Christ even now in heavenly places, then that would change some things.
It would change your prayer life, your thought life, your priorities, your worries, your hopes and fears and emotional states. Because Christ is risen, and you have died to this world. And Christ has ascended, and he lives reigns to give you life forever. Truly in Jesus the best is yet to come, and every day that passes is one day closer to the fulfillment of our hope, the wiping away of every tear, the undoing of death, the resurrection of all things and the bliss of heaven.
When the church believes this in faith, and longs for it in hope, and loves the God who promised it, she is made to ride upon the heavens with Christ. She is made ready to wield the scepter of her Lord. Which as Christ promises in Revelation 2:26-27, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.”
The Church Triumphant is presently ruling this world with the Lord Jesus. And we the Church Militant are in union with them and with Him and together we are the Son of Man. And it is this identify that the church must recover if we would see real reformation and real revival in our day.
And so that is the practical application and implication of our passage this morning. With that up front, let us now turn to a very brief exposition of verse 27.
Let me read for us again the surrounding context starting in verse 24.
24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. 26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
Review of Verses 24-26
Last Sunday we covered verses 24-26, which we said describes a change in the celestial/spiritual powers of heaven.
We saw that the darkening of sun, moon, and stars, is a reference to the removal of the entire spiritual-political government of the old creation.
This includes the fall and binding of various demonic powers, like Satan and the ones who were influencing the beast empire of Rome and the harlot Jerusalem.
This includes the fall of many human rulers such as the high priesthood and priests in Jerusalem, and the emperor Nero who died in 68 AD.
This includes (perhaps most of all) the end of the whole sacrificial system at the temple, which was a way of keeping heavenly time on earth with its daily sacrifices, weekly sabbaths, new moons, and festival seasons.
The entire sun, moon, and stars of the old covenant and old creation were coming to end in the 1st century. And Jesus says that it is going to be replaced just like Daniel 7 foretold, with the coming of the Son of Man to inherit the kingdom.
What is the coming of the Son of Man?
It is not the bodily return of Christ at the end of history, it is the enthronement of the saints in Christ who then receive the kingdom.
So the Son of Man is not Jesus all by himself, it is Jesus together with his spiritual body, the church, the saints, who are in union with him. And we know this because when the vision of Daniel 7 is explained, the “one like the Son of Man” is identified three times as the saints. And so Jesus is THE Son of Man par excellence, and the saints are the one LIKE the Son of Man. And together they receive the kingdom and everlasting dominion.
We might also remind ourselves here of the timing for when the Son of Man is said to come.
In Daniel 7, the Son of Man comes to bring an end to the fourfold kingdom that began with Nebuchadnezzarand was then consumed by Persia, then Greece, then Rome. So God’s kingdom was promised to come in the days of what we call the Roman Empire, and what the Bible calls the “oikumene.”
Jesus gives an even more definitive timestamp in Mark 9:1 and Matthew 16:27-28, when he says, “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
Notice that Jesus speaks of a coming in glory with his angels to judge mankind and that he promises that some of his disciples standing there will live to see that happen.
Who lived to see it? Well, the Apostle John was given a vision of it, which we call the book of Revelation, and church tradition holds that he lived beyond 70 AD when the Son of Man indeed came.
So that’s verses 24-26, and then here in verse 27 we read…
Verse 27
27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
Q. What is this gathering of the elect?
In the history of the church, there have been basically four different interpretations of this verse, and so before I explain which interpretation I think is best, let me set before you all the different options.
Option #1 – This gathering of the elect refers to the resurrection at the end of history.
The problem with this view is that the timing is clearly 1st century, not the final judgment.
Jesus says this will take place at the same time as the coming of the Son of Man and this cosmic transfer of power, and Jesus says in verse 30, “this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.”
So we need to at least reject the timing portion of this first interpretive option.
Option #2 – This gathering of the elect refers to evangelistic efforts throughout the church age.
Under this interpretation, angels is sometimes translated more broadly as messengers and can refer to either human missionaries or spiritual/angelic messengers who help those missionaries.
This is a possible interpretation, but there are a few reasons why I am not persuaded of this view.
First of all, you have the timing problem again. When Jesus gives the parable of the fig tree, he says in Matthew’s parallel account, “when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors” (Matt. 24:33). And then Luke’s version states explicitly what is near, he says, “when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.”
So if this gathering of the elect refers to the spread of the gospel by missionaries after the great tribulation,it is hard to see how that ongoing work, which continues even to this day, could be a sign to them in the 1st century that God’s kingdom is near.
A second reason I am not persuaded of this view is that in Matthew’s version of this same verse he says, “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:31).
Notice first that the location from which the elect are gathered is all spoken of here in strictly heavenly terms. They are taken “from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Mark includes “to the uttermost part of the earth,” but in both passages the elect seem to be partially, if not exclusively, those who are already in heaven. This makes the evangelistic option of people on earth less likely since it includes at least some elect who are in heaven.
Secondly, Matthew also adds that this gathering is accompanied by the sound of a trumpet. When trumpets are sounded in Scripture, it most frequently refers to a specific day or moment of judgment and/or resurrection.
This again does not really fit if this gathering of the elect is ongoing missionary work throughout the entire church age.
Option #3 – This gathering of the elect refers the 1st century church on earth being reconstituted after the scattering of the great tribulation.
One of the strengths of this position it that it fits well with the promise of Deuteronomy 30:4 which says, “If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.”
And then in Zechariah 2:6, it says, “Up, up! Flee from the land of the north,” says the Lord; “for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven.”
So in the Old Testament, when tribulation and persecution arises, God’s people are sent to the four winds to both escape judgment and also to be evangelists in those regions where they are exiled to.
This is actually what happens in the book of Acts right after Stephen’s martyrdom. It says in Acts 8:1, “Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.”
So remember Jesus’ words just before his ascension in Acts 1:8, “you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
And how was that fulfilled? Well as the book of Acts goes on to record, the gospel goes forth often unintentionally (from a human perspective) because of persecution and being scattered to the four winds.
And so this interpretive Option #3 is saying that after the early church was scattered to the four winds, and after many of them died in the great tribulation, God is going to regather those remaining so that the gospel can continue once all these judgments and wrath on Rome and Jerusalem have been poured out.
Now I think this interpretation is possible, but it does seem to overlook two elements in Matthew’s parallel regarding the trumpet and the emphasis on the elect being gathered in heaven. And so let me give you Option #4 which I think is the best explanation.
Option #4 – The gathering of the elect refers to the first resurrection, which is described in Revelation 11 and Revelation 20.
Now this may sound strange to some of you at first, but Revelation 11 and Revelation 20 both describe a literal bodily resurrection and ascension of the saints that takes place in 70 AD.
Recall that in Matthew’s version this gathering of the elect is accompanied with the sound of a trumpet, and it just so happens that in Revelation 11, during the sounding of the sixth trumpet and just before the sound of the seventh trumpet blast, there are two witnesses who are martyred in Jerusalem, their dead bodies lie in the street but then it says, “And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them” (Rev. 11:11-12).
And then a few verses later it says in Revelation 11:15, “And the seventh angel sounded (lit. trumpeted); and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
Notice this is the same language as Daniel 7 which speaks of the Son of Man receiving the kingdom.
So just as Christ died, rose, and ascended to heaven in 30 AD, so also the saints will die (many of them as martyrs in the great tribulation), but then rise, and ascend to heaven in 70 AD to possess the kingdom.
If that sounds fanciful to you, consider Revelation 20 which states this even more explicitly.
It says in Revelation 20:4-6, “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”
Notice that those who participate in the first resurrection are those who have already died and their souls are in heaven. Part of the drama of Revelation is that the saints are waiting to be vindicated and enthroned even as Christ is enthroned.
We read earlier in Revelation 6:9-10 it says, “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”
So by the time we get to Revelation 20, those remaining servants of Christ have been killed (as Revelation 11 gives us a snapshot of), and they are resurrected to reign with Christ for the whole millennium/church age (1,000 years).
This interpretation fits together all the pieces and timing aspects that the previous 3 interpretations do not.
We agree with Option #1 that this ingathering of the elect is referring to a bodily resurrection and ascension of the saints. However, it is not the final resurrection in view, it is the first resurrection as Revelation 20 describes.
We see also that angels are involved as Revelation describes in sounding the trumpets, carrying out God’s judgments, and gathering the elect (see Rev. 14).
We see also that the souls of the saints are gathered from heaven even as their dead bodies on earth are resurrected and gathered from the uttermost parts of earth.Wherever their dead bodies were, God could resurrect them and cause them to ascend into heaven.
Finally, we see also that the first resurrection fits all of the texts that locate the timing of this ingathering as being simultaneous with the coming of the Son of Man, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the beginning of the church age (the millennium).
Conclusion
Now regardless of which interpretation you find most persuasive, one thing that everyone agrees on is that the place of regathering is no longer the temple in Jerusalem as it was in the Old Testament.
In times past, when God scattered his people to the four winds, he eventually gathered them back to a central physical location, which was the temple in Jerusalem.
But as Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4, “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father…But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
When God destroyed the temple in 70 AD, and gave the kingdom over to the saints, He was testifying for the rest of history, that the central place of worship, and the central place the elect are gathered to, is around Jesus Christ who is enthroned in heaven. And therefore as I read earlier from Hebrews 12, when we lift our hearts to God through faith, hope and love, we truly come to “Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”
This is what God is gathering us for every Lord’s Day, to sit down with him in heavenly places. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Coming of the Son of Man (Mark 13:24-26)

The Coming of the Son of ManSunday, April 21st, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 13:24-31
24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. 26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. 28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: 29 So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. 30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. 31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
Prayer
O God and Father of Lights, from whom all Goodness and Light proceed, grant us now to behold in the lamp of Your Word, He Who Is the Light of the Whole World. Make now to shine upon us, the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the very image of God. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Well, this morning we come to the climax of Mark 13, wherein Jesus describes in very cosmic terms his coming to destroy Jerusalem and the old creation. And because this is a passage of Scripture that is so often misinterpreted as referring to Christ’s final coming at the end of history, we will only cover the first three verses of our text this morning, verses 24-26, and then next week we will review and cover verses 27-31.
Now the reason I wanted to read verses 24 through 31, is because verse 24 and verse 30 give us the time frame for when this coming of the Son of Man shall be.
According to Jesus words in verse 24, it will take place “in those days after the tribulation.” Which tribulation? The one he just got done describing in verse 19 when he said, “For in those days shall be tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.”
And then in verse 30, Jesus gives them the broader timeframe for when one stone shall not be left upon another in the temple (vs. 2), when he says, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.”
So according to Jesus, the great tribulation, the gospel going forth to all nations in the Empire, the abomination of desolation, and the coming of the Son of Man, are not future events to us, they are all future events to the twelve disciples and will be fulfilled within one generation of him speaking, that is within roughly 40 years.
And as later books in the New Testament itself testifies, and as both secular and church history testifies, Jesus was not lying. All of these things took place just like Jesus said they would. And they took place between 30 AD when Christ ascended into heaven, and 70 AD, when Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed.
So whatever the coming of the Son of Man is, Jesus guaranteed in the strongest terms possible, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation [then living] shall not pass [die], till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”
And yet despite this very clear timeframe, the Christian church has often struggled to interpret this section of the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, plus Revelation). They read of stars falling from heaven, and the sun and moon being put out, and then they look outside and see there is the sun, at night is the moon, and no stars seem to have fallen. Moreover, they hear, “the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory,” and they automatically assume that this must refer to Christ’s bodily return at the end of history.
So you can see why some Christians have struggled with this portion of Scripture. Well, my hope this morning is to help you interpret these words the way Christ intended and the way the apostles themselves interpreted them. And in order to do that, we are going to have to go back and study their Bible, the Old Testament, because almost every single word that Jesus speaks here in verse 24-27 is a quotation or allusion to an Old Testament passage.
Where so many pastors and Bible commentators go wrong is that they forget the first rule of biblical interpretation, which is, “Scripture interprets Scripture.” God is his own and best interpreter. And therefore, if we want to become better readers of God’s Word, we need to get all of Scripture inside of us. So it is to that task we shall now give ourselves.
Outline of the Text
There are six events that Jesus foretells/prophesies in verses 24-27, and you will notice they are all spoken of in heavenly terms. This morning we’ll cover events 1-5.
In verses 24-25 we have the first four events which are:
1. “the sun shall be darkened,”
2. “the moon shall not give her light,”
3. “the stars of heaven shall fall,” and then I take the 4th event as summarizing the first three:
4. “and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.”
In verse 26 we have the fifth event:
5. “then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”
In verse 27 is the sixth event:
6. “And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.”
So let’s begin by considering events 1-4 together since they are often found in this same order in the Old Testament.
Verses 24-25 – Q1. What does it mean for the sun and moon to be darkened, the stars of heaven to fall, and the powers of heaven to be shaken?
Well, let us consider first why God created the sun, moon, and stars (these heavenly powers).
We read in Genesis 1:14-18 that on the fourth day, “God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day [the sun], and the lesser light to rule the night [the moon]: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.”
So there are three basic purposes for the sun, moon, and stars:
1. To literally give light and life to the earth.
2. To mark days, nights, times, and seasons.
3. To rule/govern those times.
So from the very beginning of the creation, even before man was formed, God placed sun, moon, and stars in the firmament to rule the world. Without the sun and the changing seasons, there would be no food or sustenance for man, and in this sense at the very least, man is subject to and dependent upon the powers of heaven for daily bread.
A few chapters later in Genesis 15, God tells Abram to number the stars, and promises “So shall thy seed be.” So God promises that Abraham’s children would be as stars in the heavens. Note it is here that stars are becoming symbolic for human beings.
And then the next time sun, moon, and stars all appear together is in Genesis 37, where Joseph (Abraham’s seed, great grandson) dreams that the sun, moon, and eleven stars are bowing down to him. And Jacob his father says to him, “What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” (Gen. 37:10).
So just within the first 37 chapters of Genesis, we have a theme already developing about the sun, moon, and stars. They are heavenly rulers, they determine times and seasons, and God promises that one day, His people will be those rulers. Jacob is the sun, Rachel is the moon, Joseph’s eleven brothers are the stars.
Now by the time we get to the book of Exodus, instead of God’s people being in charge and governing the earth, we see they are enslaved to the Egyptians and to Pharaoh who regards himself as a kind of god. Ra was the sun-god of ancient Egypt, and therefore when God brings the 9th plague of thick darkness over all Egypt, he was doing so to demonstrate that He is the one who ordains times and seasons, who raises up rulers and casts them down. Pharaoh thought he was the sun, and so God darkens the sun to remind him that YHWH alone is God.
Remember the whole purpose for the Exodus and the ten plagues upon Egypt. God says in Exodus 7:5, “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.” The purpose for all of God’s judgments is the glory and knowledge of His Name.
One of the main lessons of the Exodus is that God is the one who establishes and ordains all powers, both heavenly and earthly (Rom. 13:1).
Pharaoh and his governors apostatized when they “forgot Joseph” and became a false sun, moon, and stars (even worshipping them). They stopped governing the times justly. How so? They did not give God his worship or sabbath (seventh day) rest to His people. And therefore, when God’s appointed rulers fail in this duty, he eventually replaces them. This is what God promised to Abraham and it is what Exodus records.
The first part of Exodus is the destruction of the Egyptian cosmos, He darkens their sun. And then the rest of the book (along with Leviticus and Numbers) is God turning the twelve tribes he redeemed out of Egypt, into His heavenly host.
This is what the construction of the tabernacle was all about. The entire sacrificial system of the old covenant was a way of keeping times and seasons and doing “God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.”
Israel marked every new day with an evening and morning sacrifice.
Israel marked every seventh day with an extra lamb upon the altar to mark the Sabbath.
Every new moon there was special burnt offering, grain, offering, drink offering, and sin offering.
And then there were special festival times (seasons) like Passover, Pentecost, Trumpets, and Booths. And these all revolved around the changing seasons of sowing and reaping, first fruits and fall harvest. And all of this further signified the pattern of death and resurrection, darkness to light.
So the sacrifices that God prescribed in the law were an earthly way of tracking heavenly time. And all of this is in view when Jesus says the sun, moon, and stars are going to be put out when the Son of Man comes.
At one level, Jesus is prophesying that the temple and its sacrificial offerings are going to be cut off. Just as when Pharaoh apostatized and then Egypt was destroyed by plagues, so also when the Jews become wandering stars (Jude 11) and idolaters, Jerusalem will be likewise destroyed. This is the pattern of how God judges and rules the world.
This is further proved in how the prophets foretold the destruction of other idolatrous nations.
We heard earlier in Isaiah 13 that the destruction of Babylon when it was conquered by the Medes and Persians is spoken of in these same cosmic terms, “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, Cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate: And he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: The sun shall be darkened in his going forth, And the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, And the wicked for their iniquity… Therefore I will shake the heavens, And the earth shall remove out of her place, In the wrath of the Lord of hosts, And in the day of his fierce anger.” (Is. 13:9-11, 13).
So notice, all of these cosmic/astral signs are symbolic for the real historical fall of Babylon in 539 BC.
Likewise, referring to the destruction of Egypt it says in Ezekiel 32:7-8, “And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God.”
And then in Joel 2:10, speaking of Jerusalem’s destruction it says, “The earth shall quake before them; The heavens shall tremble: The sun and the moon shall be dark, And the stars shall withdraw their shining:”
So notice that in all these instances (and there are many others), it is not a literal sun, moon, and stars that is in view, but rather sun, moon, and stars are symbolic for the spiritual-political rulers of a nation: the emperor, his wise men, and his princes, and sometimes even to the demonic forces behind those earthly powers.
So when Jesus says, “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken,” he is prophesying the fall of the entire old creation and its spiritual-political government.
This includes many demonic forces and principalities, and even Satan who Christ bound in Revelation 20.
This includes the Jewish priesthood and the sacrificial system that marked time in the old covenant.
This includes the Roman empire, and its status as the fourth beast and kingdom of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7.
All of these different powers and authorities are symbolized by sun, moon, and stars if you know the Old Testament Scriptures.
Now if verses 24-25 foretell the end of the old world and its spiritual government, it is verses 26-27 that foretell who replaces those old rulers and powers in the heavens. And this is spoken of in Daniel 7 as “the coming of the Son of Man.”
Verse 26
26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
So let’s start with the question, “Who/what exactly is the Son of man?”
When most people hear the phrase “Son of Man” they automatically think it refers to Jesus who repeatedly calls himself the “Son of Man.” But “Son of Man” is actually a title that Jesus takes to Himself, and it is the title that God gave to the prophet Ezekiel, who is called “Son of Man” over 91 times in Ezekiel.
And so if you want to know who/what the Son of Man is, if you want to know why Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, you have to first understand who Ezekiel was. So who was Ezekiel?
Ezekiel was God’s high priest during the desolation of Jerusalem (593-573). He was ordained in the 30th year, and he lived before, during, and after the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple.
One of the important things we learn from the book of Ezekiel, is that the Son of Man is a prophet and priest who pronounces judgement on Israel (and the nations), and calls them to repent, and when they don’t repent, he destroys them with His words.
In Ezekiel 11 God says, “prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man…And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died” (Ezek. 11:4, 13).
We read also in Ezekiel 43, that he beholds in a vision the glory of God and says, “And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw…when I came to destroy the city.”
So although the armies of Babylon literally burned the temple and destroyed Jerusalem, Ezekiel teaches us that it was actually him, the Son of Man, and God’s prophetic Word that destroyed the city.
So Scripture teaches us that there are multiple levels of causality for God’s judgments. There is God at the top, and he commands his angels and even demons to punish evildoers, and then he also includes the prophets and the saints in those judgments.
Jesus speaks of this in Matthew 16:19, as the power given to the apostles to bind and to loose. He says, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Likewise, he tells his disciples in Luke 10:19, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions [demonic forces], and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”
Paul also speaks of this spiritual power when he says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”
And again in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
So 600 years before Jesus and the Apostles, Ezekiel was God’s “Son of Man” who would set the pattern and example for when Jesus takes up this title in the gospels.
Jesus, like Ezekiel, is a true priest and true prophet.
Jesus, like Ezekiel, will preach repentance, be rejected and mocked, and then prophesy the end of that city while laying the blueprints for a new temple.
Jesus, like Ezekiel, will destroy Jerusalem, not by his literal bodily presence, but by the word of His mouth, using a foreign army (Rome) to burn it to the ground.
This is part of what it means for Jesus to be the Son of Man. He is a prophet and priest who comes to bring judgment with His words.
Now in addition to Ezekiel being the Son of Man (and Jesus being a new Ezekiel), there is an important vision in Daniel 7, which Jesus is quoting and interpreting here in verse 26. And this is the key to understanding what the coming of the Son of Man is.
In Daniel 7, Daniel has a vision of four beast empires (Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome), and he sees the Ancient of Days sitting in judgment to destroy those beasts and give their dominion to “one like the Son of Man.”
It says in Daniel 7:13-14, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
And then a couple verses later Daniel is given the interpretation of this vision, and this is where we are told who/what the one like the Son of Man is.
Daniel 7:17-22 says, “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.”
So who is the Ancient of Days in this scene? It is God.
And who is the “one like the Son of Man?” It is the saints, the church, or as Paul describes it, the body of Christ.
And therefore, when Jesus calls Himself “the Son of Man,” He is explaining how this vision of Daniel 7 is going to be fulfilled. He is explaining how the saints inherit the kingdom of God:
The Ancient of Days, God Most High, shall come in the flesh. He shall become a Son of Adam, a Son of Man, and become the beginning of a new humanity succeeding in all the ways that Adam and every other Son of Adam failed.
And then as God and Man, he shall be glorified on the cross. As Jesus says in John 8:28, “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he.” And also in John 5:26-27, “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.”
So Jesus Christ is both Ancient of Days and Son of man. And the way the saints ascend to heaven to take the kingdom, is through being united to Jesus and being made like the son of man, conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29).
So now having Daniel 7 in our minds we can interpret Jesus words in verse 26, “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”
Well, there is nothing here or in Daniel 7 about the Son of Man descending to the earth. This is the Son of man coming up/ascending to the Ancient of Days. Therefore, this rules out the bodily return of Jesus Christ to the earth (Acts 1:11).
What the coming of the Son of man in power and glory refers to is threefold:
1. The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by Christ and his saints, just like Ezekiel destroyed it the first time.
2. The end of the beast empires and their spiritual dominion, which God established with Babylon in the days of Nebuchadnezzar (603 BC), and ended with Vespasian in 70 AD.
3. The giving over of that spiritual-political dominion to the saints in Christ, who together are the Son of Man (as the head is united to the body).
Both Daniel and Jesus agree that these events must take place in the days of the Roman Empire, and Jesus further specifies, they will all be fulfilled within one generation of his death and resurrection.
And so it is hard to overstate what happened in the 1st century in 70 AD. Truly the powers of heaven were shaken, and to Christ and the saints was given all authority in heaven and on earth. The implications of this transfer of power are immense, and merits a whole sermon in itself.
Nevertheless, let us conclude for today by answering a final question, “How did people see this coming of the Son of Man?”
Well, we can say they saw it literally with the destruction of the city and many other recorded signs in the heavens (we’ll look at this next week).
But more true to Jesus words, they saw it figuratively, that is they perceived and knew or saw the truth about who Jesus claimed to be, that Jesus was no false prophet and in fact He is the Son of God just like He said He was.
In the very next chapter, when Jesus is being interrogated by the high priest it says in Mark 14:61-62, “the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”
It is that line that gets Jesus charged with blasphemy and sent to the cross. And yet he tells that individual high priest that he himself will see the coming of the Son of Man. Jesus was not lying. That high priest saw and knew afterward who Jesus was.
And after 70 AD, the whole world knew that Jesus’ prophecy came to pass, “not one stone shall be left upon another of this temple.”
So the coming of the Son of Man was the vindication of Jesus Christ and the vindication of all the saints who put their hope in him.Moreover, it confirms and testifies for the rest of human history, that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, He is Ancient of Days and Son of Man, and there is no other name under heaven by which you can be saved.
He promised to destroy that apostate city and he did. And now to Him and the saints belong all authority in heaven and on earth. That’s you and me, and that is the spiritual power we have in Jesus.So let us wield that authority as He has commanded, that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: Remember Lot's Wife (Mark 13:14-23)

Remember Lot’s WifeSunday, April 14th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 13:14-23
14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains: 15 And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: 16 And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. 17 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 18 And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. 19 For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. 20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days. 21 And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not: 22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. 23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for these words of warning and comfort and assurance from the Lord Jesus. We thank you also for the Holy Spirit, who helps us to test the spirits, to know which are from God and which are from the world. We ask for the gift of spiritual discernment as we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and forces of darkness in high places. We ask for Your Help in Christ’s name, Amen.
Introduction
The title of my sermon this morning is “Remember Lot’s Wife.” These words come from the mouth of the Lord Jesus in a passage that is parallel to Mark 13, and which Luke records in his gospel in Luke 17:31-32. There we read, “In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot’s wife.”
Jesus likens the coming tribulation and destruction of Jerusalem as a time similar to two previous historical events.
The first is Noah’s flood. He says in Luke 17:26-27, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.”
So just as life seemed to go on “business as usual” for those who rejected Noah’s preaching (the Ark was his sermon), so also shall it be in the days leading up to the coming of the Son of Man, when the building of the church is God’s sermon.
And whereas in Noah’s day it was water that drowned and cleansed the old world, in 70 AD it will be the Roman armies who shall act as God’s flood and fire to burn down the temple and baptize the cosmos which it represented. Jesus says, “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.”
The second event that Jesus likens the destruction of Jerusalem to, is God raining fire down upon Sodom and Gomorrah.
Jesus says in Luke 17:28-30, “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
In both of these instances, you have a persecution and rejection of righteous Noah and righteous Lot (2 Peter 2:7).
In both instances there are messengers and warnings that a flood of judgment is coming, and yet because the inhabitants of those places refused to repent, they are blinded to the obvious signs that their world is coming to an end. And therefore, for the ungodly, life seems to just go on as it always has, until all of a sudden, the Son of Man comes like a thief in the night, and there they are, caught unawares and without excuse before the judgment seat of God.
This is the state of every single person who does not know and is not told when he shall die. Any day could be judgment day. And so although Jesus is speaking here of a particular judgment upon a particular people at a particular time namely 70 AD, the principles here are universal. Because when is judgment day for you? It is the day you die. As it says in Hebrews 9, “it is appointed unto men once to die, and then comes judgment.”
Jesus tells a parable in Luke 12 that describes the person who does not recognize that death can come any day.
In Luke 12:16-21 it says, Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
What was the sin of Lot’s wife? Why does Jesus want his disciples to remember her as they endure the greatest tribulation in world history?
The sin of Lot’s wife was the same as the rich fool. Neither were rich toward God. Both loved this present world which is passing away more than the world that is to come.
Lot’s wife was in the very process of being delivered from destruction and yet she chose to look back with longing at Sodom and Gomorrah. She was sad and unwilling to flee to the mountain of God. Therefore, Jesus says after “Remember Lot’s wife.” Remember the pillar of salt that she became. “For whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.”
That is the lesson Jesus is teaching his disciples (and wants to teach us) throughout the Olivet Discourse. No man knows the day or hour in which judgment shall come. We all know we will die, and we might even know that it will be within the next 40 years more or less, but the day and hour is hidden from us. And therefore, we are always to be watchful, always to be prayerful, and are always to be ready to die should the good Lord require our soul of us this very night.
As Moses says in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
You can either be Noah in the ark, willing die to this world so that you might enter the new creation. Or you can cling to Sodom and Gomorrah like Lot’s wife did and lose your life trying to preserve it. Jesus tells his disciples all these things in advance so that they can be prepared and ready for judgment. And so also should we.
Now last Sunday we spent a good hour on the question, “What is the abomination of desolation?” And if you missed that, you ought to go back and listen to that sermon because I will not repeat all of it here. But in that sermon, we said there are few different candidates for what the abomination of desolation might have been.
It might have been the Jewish priests’ rejection of all sacrifices and tribute for the Gentiles, according to Josephus this took place in 66 AD, and this is what kicked of the Jewish-Roman War.
Or, it might have been the completion of the temple and its decoration in 64 AD, along with Nero’s persecution of Christians for the fire in Rome.
Or, it might have been the murder of the apostles, specifically of James the Just who was bishop in Jerusalem, and was martyred in the temple court by the priests in 62 AD.
Whatever the case, Jesus says in verse 14, “when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains…”
So the abomination that maketh desolate is a public sign that the end of Jerusalem and the end of that age is approaching. And therefore, Jesus gives instructions to those who recognize this sign, and it is to those instructions that we shall now attend.
Outline of the Text
In verses 14-18, Jesus exhorts us with diverse metaphors to forsake our lives in this in world and to look with hope to the next.
In verses 19-20, Jesus identifies these years as the great tribulation but promises that God will cut those days short for the sake of His elect.
And then in verses 21-23, Jesus warns them of false Christs and false prophets who will try to deceive them.
So starting in verse 14, the first exhortation Jesus gives is, “let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains…”
Verse 14
14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:
Now Jerusalem itself was situated on a mountain and was sometimes called the holy mountain (Is. 66:20). We have also seen that Jesus is presently saying all of these words and pronouncing this judgment as he sits upon a different mountain, the Mount of Olives. And so it is interesting that Jesus does not specify which mountain or mountains the inhabitants of Judaea ought to flee to, but rather he gives them this general exhortation to flee to the mountains.
This is likely because “fleeing to the mountains” is symbolic/emblematic for what God’s people usually do to escape from wrath and evildoers.
In Genesis 19, where does Lot escape to? To the mountains of Zoar.
In Genesis 31, where does Jacob escape to as he flees from Laban? To the mountains of Gilead.
In Exodus, where does Moses flee to and then later the whole nation of Israel? To Mount Sinai.
In Joshua 2, where does Rahab tell the spies to hide so they can escape from the men of Jericho? To the mountains (Josh. 2:16, 22).
In 1 Kings 19, when Jezebel is hunting Elijah, where does Elijah flee to? To Horeb, to the mountain of God.
Now think about this for a moment, can a mountain hide you from the wrath of God? Can a mountain protect you from the God who formed and created mountains? Of course not.
So when the righteous flee to the mountains, what are they actually fleeing to? What reality do the mountains signify? They signify the One who is the highest of all high places. They signify God who is our rock and refuge and strength and our hiding place in the storm.
It says in Psalm 125 which we often sing, “They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, Which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, So the Lord is round about his people From henceforth even for ever.”
Or, as we love to sing in Psalm 121, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.”
So when Jesus says “flee to the mountains,” what is he saying? He is saying flee to God. Flee to the one who is the lover of your soul and who promises that though you walk through the fiery furnace, not one hair of your head shall perish. Though they kill and crucify your body, do not fear them, trust the one who has the power to kill or preserve your soul.
Remember, all of the disciples are going to suffer and die for Christ’s sake. And so Jesus is not telling them here how to avoid tribulation and martyrdom, he is telling them and all who hear these words, how to endure tribulation and die well.
When you like Christ are surrounded by bulls of Bashan. Or when you like Lot are surrounded by murderous sodomites. Orwhen you like Jerusalem are surrounded by armies. Where can you go?Flee in your soul to the mountains. Lift your eyes to the hills and run to God. Run by faith to Mount Zion and there you shall find the Peace the surpasses understanding. In God you shall find grace to endure the very worst that this world, your flesh, and the devil may bring.
In verses 15-18 Jesus gives essentially the same exhortation but under different metaphors.
Verses 15-18
15 And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: 16 And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. 17 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 18 And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.
So while all these sayings can be taken in their literal physical sense, there are some intentional oddities that Jesus gives to draw our minds to the spiritual sense.
For example, in verse 15, if you are on the top of your house, how do you escape without going back down into the house? Is Jesus encouraging people to literally jump off their roofs? I doubt it. I think it is far more likely that Jesus is using the house and the housetop as it is often used elsewhere in Scripture to refer to the place of prayer (the housetop) and the things pertaining to the body (the house).
For example, Psalm 102 is titled, “a prayer of the afflicted” and in verse 7 the psalmist says, “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.”
We see in Acts 10:9 it says, “Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour.”
We read in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, a prophecy of God’s kingdom arriving and it says, “But in the last days it shall come to pass, That the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, And it shall be exalted above the hills; And people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, And to the house of the God of Jacob…”
So remember God’s House, which is the temple, is itself a symbolic holy mountain, and so when Peter goes to pray upon the housetop, he is spiritually in prayer ascending to God’s holy mountain. Obviously, we are not any closer to heaven because we pray from our rooftops, it is that the highest part of our being, our housetop, (namely our soul/mind/spirit/heart) is elevated above earthly things, the body, the house, and therefore Jesus says, “let him that is on the housetop [in prayer and communion with God] not go down into the house [seeking bodily things], neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house.” This is the same as what Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:7, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”
So Jesus is saying in parable form what Paul says explicitly in Colossians 3, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above [on the housetop], where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth [in the house]. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
This same principle applies also when Jesus says, “And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment.” Paul puts it this way in the very next verses, “put off the old man with his deeds; And put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Col. 3:9-10).
If you are in the field laboring for Christ who is the Lord of the Harvest, don’t go back like Lot’s wife did for the garments of the old creation. You are a new creation, and God has a new garment, namely the resurrection, waiting for you!
Next in verse 17 Jesus says, “But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!” To what does this refer?
Well, there is nothing wrong with taking these words literally because everyone knows it is pregnant and nursing women and their babies who are the most naturally vulnerable when attempting to travel. But I think the reason Jesus mentions pregnant and nursing mothers is because they are a picture of what the church and more specifically pastors are going to be like during this time.
In 1 Thessalonians 2:7, Paul identifies himself as a nursing mother. He says, “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.”
In Galatians 4:19, he says “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”
Likewise, he says in Hebrews 5:12-14, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
So Paul sees himself as pregnant with new believers, and as a nursing mother giving milk to new Christians. And it is during the great tribulation when those baby Christians are going to be most vulnerable to deception and falling away. Their powers of discernment have not been trained yet, and so it is going to be hard work to minister to them at the same time that false Christs and false prophets and persecution tempts them to fall away, to go back and grab their garments, and to leave the housetop of prayer.
Remember Jesus said that the troubles leading up to the great tribulation are just “the beginnings of the birth pains.” But now as judgment day approaches for the old creation, those labors pains are heating up, and so Jesus says woe to those actual women who are pregnant and nursing in those days, woe also to those pastors and newborn Christians who are caught in the crossfire, and woe to the whole church and old creation, as she must die in order to give birth to the new.
The last of these exhortations in this section is verse 18, where Jesus says, “And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.”
Again, this can refer to the literal season of winter, but also to the metaphorical winter which is coming upon the earth. In Matthew 24:12 Jesus says, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”
So the tribulation of these days will be severe and traveling to church, traveling anywhere, is going to be made even more difficult for Christians by both literal winter and the spiritual winter of lawlessness. And therefore, Jesus warns and promises in verses 19-20…
Verses 19-20
19 For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. 20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.
God knows the limits of his elect. It says in 1 Corinthians 11:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Where is the way of escape? Jesus is telling us here. It is only in God, upon the housetop, in the mountains, where you soul can flee and find rest, even as great tribulation surrounds you.
So the apostles and the 1st century church went through this great tribulation Christianity survived! God upheld their faith! According to Revelation 7, there was an innumerable multitude of Christians, “from all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues [who] stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.” And it says Revelation 7:13-14, “One of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? 14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
God knows your limits. God knows the exact temperature at which your faith will be purified and at which your faith will fail. And even if your faith wavers for a moment, remember what Jesus said to Peter before his crucifixion, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31-32).
Peter’s faith stumbled. He denied Christ three times in a row. He feared for his life. But God is merciful and as it says of Him in Isaiah 42:3, “A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench.”
So you can trust the Lord Jesus, you can trust your Heavenly Father to carry you when you are weak and strengthen you in times of trouble. For He is the God who cuts the days of tribulation short for the sake of His elect. He is the God who promises that those who die in tribulation, shall be clothed in white, and crowned with glory, and granted entrance in the heavenly bliss of His eternal kingdom.
May this same God who preserved His church in the 1st century through great tribulation, give us the same faith to persevere and hold fast in hope to His promise of eternal life.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Interview: Evangelism Travels & Trends with Campus Preacher Keith Darrell

Sermon: The Abomination of Desolation (Mark 13:14-23)

The Abomination of DesolationSunday, April 7th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 13:14-23
14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains: 15 And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: 16 And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. 17 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 18 And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. 19 For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. 20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days. 21 And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not: 22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. 23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for these words from the Lord Jesus and how you used them in the 1st century to preserve the church through The Great Tribulation. We thank you also for how you continue to use these words to inspire and encourage us amidst our afflictions. Make us now to cling to your Word, for you alone have the words of Eternal Life. We ask in this Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Well, we are back in Mark 13, and this morning we come to an exceedingly difficult question that the church has yet to come to any consensus answer for, which is, What is the abomination of desolation? And while we will spend the majority of our time trying to answer that question, we must not forget or lose sight of the larger purpose for Jesus teaching these things, which is, to prepare the disciples to die as martyrs for His Name.
The twelve apostles are going to be commissioned, empowered, and sent to the four corners of the earth to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom, and while that gospel will indeed conquer and be victorious, it will not be without bloodshed. So just as Christ conquered by suffering and dying on the cross, so also the apostles and early church shall conquer by suffering and being faithful even unto death.
So this is the very practical purpose for Jesus telling the disciples what shall take place within one generation. And we know that these events were all fulfilled in the 1st century because after describing these events Jesus says in verse 30, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.”
So all of Mark 13 refers to events that took place in the 1st century, within one generation. Recall that starting in verse 5 is Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question in verse 4 which is, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?”
And what are the “these things” they are referring to? They are referring to Jesus’ declaration that “there shall not be left one stone upon another [in the temple], that shall not be thrown down” (vs. 2).
So the “end” (vs. 7) that is spoken of here, is not the end of our world, it is the end of the temple which was itself a symbol of the whole cosmos. So when the Jerusalem temple is destroyed and replaced by Jesus Christ, the true temple and the saints in Him, it can rightly be described as the end of the old world and the beginning of a new creation. It is rightly spoken of as the end of the age and the beginning of a new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells.
This end is also what Daniel is shown in his visions where there is a series of world empires that starts with Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, and then Rome, and it is during the reign of this fourth empire, this fourth beast, that the kingdom of God is said to come. And how does it come? It comes like a stone cut without human hands. It comes like an altar descending from heaven that grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth. It comes like the Son of Man up to the Ancient of Days. And as it says in Daniel 7:17-18 “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.”
So for the saints, judgment day is a day of victory. It is a day of joy, and triumph, and vindication. And so Jesus describes for the disciples in this chapter what shall precede this judgment and the arrival of his kingdom. So let me give you a brief review of the basic chronology and order of events that Jesus describes leading up to our passage.
In verses 1-8, Jesusdescribes what will take place from roughly 30 AD-62 AD. There will be deceivers, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and troubles. But these he says are just “the beginnings of sorrows” (vs. 8).
In verses 9-13, Jesus describes how during that same time period, the gospel will be preached to all nations, they will stand before kings and councils, and “be hated by all for My name’s sake.” And it is here that Jesus begins to describe what conditions will be like leading up to and through The Great Tribulation: Lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold, and even the natural bonds of love will be broken. Brother will betray brother, children will rise up against their parents and put them to death, and so forth.
And this brings us to our text, verses 13-23, where Jesus speaks explicitly of a “tribulation/affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.” And I take that as referring to roughly the years 62/64-68 AD. During that great tribulation, a number of the apostles died. Tradition holds that Paul was killed in Rome between 64-67 AD. And likewise the Apostle Peter.
Jesus also warns that during this time there will be false christs and false prophets who do signs and wonder to deceive those in the church, and therefore Jesus says, “But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.”
So notice, the function of this prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction is to build our faith, and give us hope, and to keep us from falling away. The constant exhortation Jesus gives to his followers is “keep watch,” “watch out,” “take heed to yourselves,” “watch and pray,” “stay awake.” Because “a little slumber, a little sleep, a little folding of the hands to rest, and spiritual poverty shall come upon you like an armed man” (Pr. 6:10-11).
Jesus wants his disciples to endure and persevere through the greatest tribulation there ever was or shall be, and that is why he gives them these words in Mark 13. And you and I, by imitating the faith of these apostles, we too can learn to endure the much smaller tribulations we face. That is the practical purpose of this passage.
So with that by way of review and introduction, let us turn now to this question, “What is the abomination of desolation?” Let me read again verse 14 for us.
Verse 14 – What is the Abomination of Desolation?
14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains…
Notice first of all what is contained in the parentheses, “let him that readeth understand.” Matthew’s version has basically the same parenthetical statement, “whoever reads, let him understand” (Matt. 24:15).
This is almost certainly something that Mark and Matthew added to their gospels as a kind of footnote for the person reading this gospel in the public assembly of the church. It is also a call back to the book of Daniel which says, “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” That is Daniel 12:10, and then in the very next verse Daniel 12:11 it speaks about the abomination of desolation. “And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” And then after one more verse, the book of Daniel ends.
So both Matthew and Mark alert the reader of their gospels to understand what Jesus is talking about, with the implication being that they (like Daniel) are then to explain what the abomination of desolation is to those who do not understand. A few verses earlier in Daniel 12:3 it says, “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
So God gives wisdom to his prophets, apostles, and teachers in the church so they can be like shining stars to guide those who are in the dark towards righteousness. Wisdom is not just secret knowledge that someone acquires to keep for themselves, wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is for the edification and building up of the whole church. And so in this parenthetical statement, “let him that readeth understand,” is an exhortation aimed particularly at 1st century readers/teachers (and by extension to pastors like myself) who must do the hard work of trying to understand what this abomination of desolation is referring to.
So what I want to do in our remaining time is take you on the journey of discovery that you must go on if you would understand these things. Because this is a place where Proverbs 25:2 is apt, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: But the honour of kings is to search out a matter.”
God has purposely given us puzzles in His Word, because He wants us to do the hard spiritual and intellectual work of comparing Scripture with Scripture. Because it is in the very process of reading and studying and meditating and praying for divine light that God changes us into men and women of the Word. It is how God grows us into the honour of kings.
The words “Abomination of Desolation”
So let us begin with a consideration of the words themselves, what is an abomination of desolation?
The first clue Jesus gives us is that this is “the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet.”There are three places where the abomination of desolation is referred to in the book of Daniel: Daniel 9:27, Daniel 11:31, and Daniel 12:11.
I should note here In the Hebrew Old Testament there are two different words that are often translated as abomination.
The first is תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah), which refers to actions or customs that are either generally immoral or that would violate the ceremonial laws of Israel. Examples of this kind of abomination תּוֹעֵבָה would be things like homosexuality, bestiality, necromancy, adultery, etc. These are abominations that both Jews and Gentiles could commit.
The second kind of abomination is the one that Daniel speaks of and comes from a different Hebrew word which is שִׁקֻּץ (shiqqutz). And if you look at the 28 instances of this Hebrew word in the OT, you will see that it overwhelmingly refers to some kind of idol or idolatry that God’s people commit. And for this reason, many scholars choose to translate abomination as sacrilege. It is an action of apostasy/idolatry by the priestly nation, and the high priest in particular to worship a false god (an idol of the nations) instead of the true God of the covenant.
Now if you know anything about Daniel 9, Daniel 11, and Daniel 12, you will know that these are some of the most difficult chapters in the whole Bible to interpret. And so we don’t have time to examine and explain each of these texts, they would each need their own sermon or series of sermons, but let us just hear these 3 passages and say a word about each to get them fresh in our mind.
Daniel 9:26–27 says, “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. 27And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”
So this is a prophesy that during the middle of the 70th week, the daily sacrifice and tribute will be stopped in the temple, and there will be abominations (plural) that cause and bring about the desolation to the temple. So notice the order is abomination first, then desolation. Sacrilege/idolatry first, and then because of this God forsakes and desolates his house.
Daniel 11:31-33 says, “And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. 32And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. 33And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.”
Notice here that again the abomination that maketh desolate is connected with the taking away of the daily sacrifice. There is an exchange of true worship for false worship. Notice also there is a promise that those who understand shall instruct many, but there will be a tribulation that follows in which they die by sword and flame, etc.
This instance in Daniel 11 refers to events that took place around 171 BC and are recorded in the Jewish history of 2 Maccabees. During that time there was division in Jerusalem over adopting Greek customs and at one point the Hellenizing Jews conspired to buy the high-priesthood and succeeded. They slandered and deposed the lawful Zadokite High Priest, Onnias III, and his brother Jason replaced him. Three years later, a man named Menelaus (who was not a Zadokite at all), went to Antiochus Epiphanes and bought the high priesthood for himself, and from that time onward, there was no Zadokite high priest in Israel again.
2 Maccabees 4:13-14 says, “Now such was the height of Greek fashions, and increase of heathenish manners, through the exceeding profaneness of Jason, that ungodly wretch, and no high priest; 14 That the priests had no courage to serve any more at the altar, but despising the temple, and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise.”
So this is the abomination of desolation that Daniel 11 describes. The priests themselves apostatize and commit sacrilege by deposing and eventually murdering the true high priest, and then they neglect the sacrificial offerings that God commands. And then after these abominations have been committed, God desolates his house, usually by sending a foreign army to invade and plunder it.
We see this same pattern earlier in Israel’s history when Eli’s two sons Hophni and Phineas commit sacrilege, they steal God’s food from the altar and rob God’s people, and they fornicate with women at the tabernacle. And because Eli does not stop them, God desolates his house and allows the ark of the covenant to be taken and captured by the Philistines.
Likewise in Ezekiel, we see the priests in the temple bowing down to idols, worshipping the sun, and other abominations, and it is this priestly sacrilege that causes God’s glory to depart from the house, and then he sends Babylon in to desolate it.
So the consistent pattern throughout biblical history is that the priests commit the abomination (idolatry/apostasy/sacrilege), and then God desolates his house using some Gentile army as his instrument of punishment. And we could go further and note that after He uses the Gentile power to judge his people, he then punishes that Gentile power for their sins as well.
This was the pattern for the first destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and it is exactly what God does a second time as Jesus foretells.
The third instance of the abomination of desolation is Daniel 12:11, and this is the same abomination of desolation that Jesus is calling his disciples attention to. So if you can interpret Daniel 12 correctly you can interpret Mark 13:14 correctly. But as I said, Daniel 12 is a hard chapter.
Daniel 12:11 says, “From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
Seven Criteria
So let’s summarize what we have learned thus far from Daniel’s abomination of desolation.
1. We know that this kind of abomination is an act of idolatry/sacrilege that only priests can commit.
2. We know that it is the kind of high-handed sin that would cause God to forsake and desolate his house like he has done in times past.
3. We know that it is somehow connected to the stopping of the daily sacrifice and tribute at the temple.
4. We know that when these abominations are committed, there is some kind of tribulation for those who are faithful.
Now if we look back at our text of Mark 13, we can also add three other criteria to our list.
5. Whatever the abomination of desolation is, it must be according to Jesus, “standing where it ought not.” Or as Matthew’s version has it, “standing in the holy place/area (τόπος).” This means it must be somewhere in Jerusalem, the holy city, with the temple being the most obvious location.
6. The abomination of desolation must also be a public action or event because it is something people can see. It is one of the signs (Mark 13:4) that the destruction of Jerusalem is near.
7. In terms of timing, this public sign must take place 1) during the great tribulation (vs 19),but also 2) prior to the worst of the Jewish-Roman war when leaving the city would be very difficult. So between 62-68 AD (depending on when you think the great tribulation took place).
Now with those seven criteria in front of us, we can now use them to weigh and sort the different historical options in front of us.
One of the more common interpretations is that the abomination of desolation refers to the Romans entering the temple, and offering pagan sacrifices to their false gods.
However, there are at least two reasons why this cannot be. First, as we said earlier, only priests can commit the abomination part, and second, the timing doesn’t work. It would make no sense to tell Christians to flee to the mountains after Jerusalem has already been conquered. So we can rule this option out.
Another interpretation is that the abomination of desolation refers to an event that took place in the winter of AD 67-68, when as Josephus records, Jewish Zealots took over the temple, “entering the Holy Place with defiled feet” and appointed their own high priest. The previous high priest, Ananus, said afterward, “Certainly, it had been good for me to die before I had seen the house of God full of so many abominations, or these sacred places that ought not to be trodden upon at random, filled with feet of these blood-shedding villains.”
Does this historical event fit our seven criteria?
Well, this certainly fits the desolation part, but again, these were not priests who were profaning the temple, it was other Jews (lawless Zealots) deposing the current high priest. Also, the timing is a bit late for this to be the sign to flee to the mountains. You would have wanted to be long gone from Jerusalem by this time. So I think we can rule this option out.
So let me propose for you three historical events that I think can mostly fit these seven criteria and are all possible candidates for being the abomination of desolation. And I should note that part of the difficulty is that we have limited historical records of what happened during these years, in large part because it was the great tribulation was happening. So here are the three best options I have found.
Proposal 1 – The Abomination of Desolation refers to the ending of sacrifices in the temple for any foreigners in 66 AD.
This took place in AD 66, and Josephus himself says this was the true beginning of their war with the Romans.
“And at this time it was that some of those that principally excited the people to go to war, made an assault upon a certain fortress called Masada. They took it by treachery and slew the Romans that were there, and put others of their own party to keep it. At the same time Eleazar, the sons of Ananias the high priest, a very bold youth, who was at that time governor of the temple, persuaded those that officiated in the divine service to receive no gift or sacrifice for any foreigner. And this was the true beginning of our war with the Romans; for they rejected the sacrifice of Caesar on this account; and when many of the high priests and principal men besought them not to omit the sacrifice which it was customary for them to offer for their princes, they would not prevailed upon. These relied much upon their multitude, for the most flourishing part of the innovators assisted them, but they had the chief regard to Eleazar, the governor of the temple.” (Wars of the Jews, Book II.17.2)
The timing fits, being during the great tribulation, which some place as going from 62-66 AD, others 64-68 AD, and others 62-68 AD. So whichever timeline you hold to, 66 AD is a decent candidate for when someone would want to flee to the mountains and get out of Judea, because it’s just prior to the Jewish-Roman war.
It also fits with the timing of the sacrifices being stopped, and although they did not completely stop for the Jews, we might call this a great abomination in that they were doing exactly opposite of what God commanded in the law, and what Jesus had just rebuked them for when he said, “my house is to be a house of prayer for all nations.”
This was a public action, it was priestly action, and it happened in the holy place.
So that’s one pretty good option.
Proposal 2 – The Abomination of Desolation is the completion of the temple and persecution of Christians in 64 AD.
For many years Herod had been building and decorating the temple, and in 64 AD, the same year that Nero blamed the fire in Rome on the Christians and began to persecute them, the temple was finally complete.
The timing seems to fit, and some mark this as the beginning of the great tribulation. The completion of the temple was a public event that everyone would know about, and in this sense, the temple itself is the abomination in that it embodies and represents the idolatry of the priests and their rejection of Jesus Christ as the new temple.
One difficulty is that in order to make this fit with the ending of sacrifice that Daniel foretells, you would have to spiritualize it and say something like, God no longer accepted their daily offerings because of their idolatry and in that sense the daily sacrifice was taken away. That is not an illegitimate move to make, but it is less likely I think.
Proposal 3 – The Abomination of Desolation refers to the martyrdom of James the Just in 62 AD.
James the Just was the brother of Jesus, and Eusebius records that to him “the bishop’s throne in Jerusalem had been assigned by the apostles.” Eusebius goes on to say that he lived as a Nazarite. He was “consecrated from his mother’s womb. He drank no wine or liquor and ate no meat. No razor came near his head, he did not anoint himself with oil, and took no baths. He alone was permitted to enter the sanctum, for he wore not wool but linen. He used to enter the temple alone and was often found kneeling and imploring forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like a camel’s from his continual kneeling in worship of God and in prayer for the people.”
So James the Just has a priest-like status in the temple. The priest’s garment were linen, and it says James wore linen. He alone was permitted to enter the sanctum. If this refers to the holy place, then James was likely an ordained priest of the Jews.
At the same time, because James is a Christian and the bishop of Jerusalem, he is in a very real sense, a more true priest than anyone else. He is a true priest of God in the true temple of God (the church) in the true and heavenly Jerusalem.
And therefore, when the scribes and Pharisees murdered him, publicly, at Passover, in the temple, they were committing the worst kind of abomination: human sacrifice of God’s new temple.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:17, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”
So in this sense, every time the Jews murdered a Christian, they were committing an abomination that would bring about their desolation. They were fulfilled what Jesus foretold in John 16:2, “the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service (λατρεία).”
And when they put James the Just to death, they were actually cutting off the true daily sacrifice, which is the prayers of the saints, the prayers of this bishop, who offered those prayers in the holy place.
Furthermore, it is this murder of the saints that Jesus cites in Matthew 23 as the cause for Jerusalem’s desolation, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
For this reason, I think the martyrdom of James the Just is one of the best candidates for being the abomination that brings about Jerusalem’s desolation.
And so I will close by reading from Eusebius the full description of his martyrdom:
“Now, since many even of the rulers believed, there was a tumult of the Jews and the Scribes and Pharisees saying that the whole people was in danger of looking for Jesus as the Christ. So they assembled and said to James, ‘We beseech you to restrain the people since they are straying after Jesus as though he were the Messiah. We beseech you to persuade concerning Jesus all who come for the day of the Passover, for all obey you. For we and the whole people testify to you that you are righteous and do not respect persons. So do you persuade the crowd not to err concerning Jesus, for the whole people and we all obey you. [11] Therefore stand on the battlement of the temple that you may be clearly visible on high, and that your words may be audible to all the people, for because of the Passover all the tribes, with the Gentiles also, have come together.’ [12] So the Scribes and Pharisees mentioned before made James stand on the battlement of the temple, and they cried out to him and said, ‘Oh, just one, to whom we all owe obedience, since the people are straying after Jesus who was crucified, tell us what is the gate of Jesus?1’ [13] And he answered with a loud voice, ‘Why do you ask me concerning the Son of Man? He is sitting in heaven on the right hand of the great power, and he will come on the clouds of heaven.’ [14] And many were convinced and confessed at the testimony of James and said, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’ Then again the same Scribes and Pharisees said to one another, ‘We did wrong to provide Jesus with such testimony, but let us go up and throw him down that they may be afraid and not believe him.’ [15] And they cried out saying, ‘Oh, oh, even the just one erred.’ And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, ‘Let us take the just man for he is unprofitable to us. Yet they shall eat the fruit of their works.’ [16] So they went up and threw down the Just, and they said to one another, ‘Let us stone James the Just,’ and they began to stone him since the fall had not killed him, but he turned and knelt saying, ‘I beseech thee, O Lord, God and Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ [17] And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom Jeremiah the prophet bore witness, cried out saying, ‘Stop! what are you doing? The Just is praying for you.’ And a certain man among them, one of the laundrymen, took the club with which he used to beat out the clothes, and hit the Just on the head, and so he suffered martyrdom. [18] And they buried him on the spot by the temple, and his gravestone still remains by the temple. He became a true witness both to Jews and to Greeks that Jesus is the Christ, and at once Vespasian began to besiege them.” (Eus., Hist. eccl. 2.23.10–18)
May God give us faith such as this, they we too might bear witness to the glorious and saving gospel of Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Sermon: Seeing & Believing (John 20:24-31)

Seeing and BelievingEaster Sunday, March 31st, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
John 20:24-31
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. 26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. 30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
Prayer
O Father, we thank you for opening to us from Christ’s side, the door of life. We thank you most of all for the death and resurrection of Your Son, which is the greatest of all signs, and is a perpetual testimony that your love for us is stronger than death. As we open now Your Word, we ask for spiritual strength, so that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is incomprehensible:the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God. We ask for this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
In Matthew 16, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” And his disciples answer him saying, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” And Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The chief purpose of the four gospels is to make you to say what Peter said, and more personally, to make you say what Thomas says here in our sermon text. In answer to the question, “Who is Jesus? Who do you say that I am?” The gospels are written so that you might answer, “Jesus is my Lord and my God.” My lord and my God.
More important than any other truth there is. More important than any other confession you make. Is this confession of faith from Thomas the Apostle. Who is Jesus? He is “My Lord and my God.”
We are told in Philippians 2:10-11, that there will come a day when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
And so Scripture teaches us that there are two ways of confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord.
One is voluntary and arises from the grace of faith: “Jesus Christ is my Lord and my God.”
The other confession is involuntary. It is the forced confession of a conquered foe. It is the fearful and shuddering confession that demons and the reprobate shall make when they stand before the throne of the Lord Jesus on judgment day.
James 2:19 says, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!”
The unclean spirit in Mark 1:24 says, “what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.”
So you can believe that Jesus is Lord and God like a demon with a lifeless faith that has no love in it. Or you can believe like an apostle, with a faith that flows from charity, and thanksgiving, and joy that God loves you and has forgiven your sins. Which confession shall you make?
Every rational creature, angel and saint, demon and sinner, will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. But one confession will come from loving faith, and the other will come from a fearful hatred. When the final judgment comes, there will be no other options. And so I declare to you today what the Apostle Paul declared to the men of Athens 2,000 years ago, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent, [and why?] because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
What does the resurrection of Jesus 2,000 years ago mean for you today? It means that Jesus is Judge, Lord, and God whether you like it or not. He is Lord and God objectively, irrevocably, and there is nothing you can do to change that.
The resurrection of Jesus means that Psalm 2 has come to pass, and that “He who sits in the heavens now laughs, and holds his foes in derision” (Ps. 2:4). It means the nations of men are put on notice and the notice the church proclaims is Psalm 2:10-12, “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, And rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, And ye perish from the way, When his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”
The resurrection of Jesus 2,000 years ago means that to Christ and his body has been given, “dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:14).
So do you want to reign and live with Christ in glory? Do you want to be seated with in heavenly places? Then confess now with Thomas, while you still have life, while you still have breath in your lungs and time to say voluntarily, Jesus is “my Lord and my God.” And if there is any hesitancy in you to make that confession, I invite you to consider these words from John’s gospel and the example of Thomas.
In our sermon text this morning, we are given the story of how Thomas came to make that personal confession of faith. And my hope is that by retracing Thomas’ steps, and by considering the pitfalls of Thomas in his state of unbelief, we too might be healed and rescued from our doubts. So with that, let us turn and expound these most precious words of God.
Verse 24
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
Here we are given the occasion for Thomas’ unbelief. And that occasion is his absence from church. His absence from the assembly of the apostles. For some reason (we are not told exactly), Thomas did not gather with the other ten disciples on Sunday.
We are told in verse 19, just before our text, that after Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb, “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.”
And so Thomas is absent for this first appearance of Jesus to the apostles on Easter Sunday. And this absence tells us at the very least, that Thomas must have not been listening when Jesus said very explicitly, that “the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day” (Mark 9:31). Explaining the disciples’ ignorance it says in John 20:9, “For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.”
So Jesus had already told the disciples what the gameplan was. He is going to die, but three days later, he will rise again. But for some reason, Thomas thinks that Christ’s death is the end of the story. For Thomas, the crucifixion was merely another evil thing happening to a good man, and not the divine plan of God to save the world.
So Thomas does not believe what Jesus had told them earlier, he does not understand the Scriptures, and we see in the next verse he does not believe his fellow disciples when they tell him Jesus is risen and has appeared to us.
Verse 25a
25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord.
It is here that Thomas’ unbelief is perhaps most shameful. It is one thing to not believe Jesus prior to his death and resurrection. After all, nobody in the history of the world had ever died and come back again like Jesus did.
But now, here are ten additional witnesses to that resurrection, confirming what Jesus had himself foretold, ten men who Thomas had lived with and done ministry with for years, and yet when they say, “we have seen the Lord,” he does not believe them. Instead, how does Thomas respond?
Verse 25b
But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
Compounding the unbelief already in Thomas’ heart is this doubling down on doubt. The disciples may have seen Jesus, but Thomas says seeing Jesus is not sufficient! He must physically touch his body and feel with his own finger the places where the nails pierced him. He must thrust his hand into Jesus side and feel where the soldier pierced him. Thomas will not believe he says unless his physical senses, his feelings are gratified.
Now the Bible has a name for this kind of person, do you know what it is?
Thomas is being what the Bible calls a carnal man, that is someone who walks and lives according to the flesh. The carnal or fleshly person is someone who is more concerned with worldly things than heavenly things. And because worldly possessions and material goods are finite, carnal men often bite and devour one another for those worldly goods. Or they are anxious and fearful about tomorrow, about food and clothing and things pertaining to the body. The carnal person’s life revolves around and terminates in the temporal goods that God gives and never traces them up to their Source. This is the essence of carnal living.
Paul charges the Corinthians with acting this way in 1 Corinthians 3 when he says (to a bunch of baptized Christians), “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?”
Likewise, Paul says in Romans 8:5-8, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace…So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
So do you have life and peace? Does peace of soul characterize your life? If not, then you, like Thomas, have a carnal mind.
So the carnal/fleshly person is the person who lives to gratify his sensual appetite. The carnal man or carnal woman lives to acquire and enjoy the lusts of the flesh. They are the “Anti-Joseph” or the “Anti-Moses” who embraces Egypt and the fleeting pleasures of sin, who embrace the seductions of Potiphar’s wife, and esteem the riches of this world as preferable to suffering with Christ.
This is the carnal and fleshly mind that all of us default to unless we are born again by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And even after we are born again, Paul says in Galatians 5 that there is now an ongoing war that goes on between the spirit and the flesh, and if you make provision for the lusts of the flesh, if you sow to the flesh and feed your carnal appetites, you will from your flesh reap corruption (you will die!).
So no man ought to presume that just because he has had some spirit-filled moments in the past, that he is no longer at war with the flesh. Otherwise, Paul would not have told us in Romans 8:13, “If you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Your salvation is dependent on you cooperating with God’s grace to put off the old man and put on the new (Eph. 4:22-24).
Your salvation is conditional upon you working out the grace that God works in (Phil. 2:12-13).
And it is because your salvation depends upon a living and loving faith and not a empty belief, that the Apostle Peter says, “Brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Summary: So salvation is ALL of grace, and that grace includes you freely willing and choosing to obey Christ and trust Him. That grace includes the hard work of denying yourself, taking up the cross, and following Jesus. There is no conflict between free grace and hard work. And this the life of Jesus bears witness to. For Jesus is Himself the very fullness of grace and truth, and yet no man worked harder and suffered more than Jesus.
So Thomas at this stage in verse 25 is being a carnal man. He is faithless. He is doubting. He is stubborn. He is not pleasing God.
And yet behold how God condescends to love this carnal sinner.
Verses 26-27
26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
So a full week passes between Thomas hearing that Jesus has risen, and him actually believing that Jesus is risen. And we can only imagine what that week must have been like for doubting Thomas.
While the women and the other ten disciples are rejoicing that Jesus is alive and pondering the implications of his resurrection, Thomas is still skeptical. Thomas is still faithless and distressed. Thomas is still indulging the doubts of his flesh.
In this instance, Thomas exemplifies what the rest of the world is like before they come to faith. It is an objective and verifiable fact that Jesus Christ is risen. The tomb is empty. You won’t be able to find the body. People have seen him and touched him. The sun is rising in the eastern sky. The world is being reborn. And yet Thomas in unbelief places his hands over his eyes.
This is what the carnal world is like when they refuse to acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They are stubbornly saying “I refuse to believe in the sun,” while their eyes are closed and their hands are covering them. For as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
One of the lessons we learn from Thomas is that there is a kind of unbelief that cannot be reasoned with. Would you argue with someone who did not believe that the sun existed? Well, there are people who have chosen to live in the dark, and their eyes have grown so accustomed to living in the dark, that even if they were to stand in the sunshine at noonday and open their eyes, it would only blind them and confirm their belief that the sun does not exist!
This is the blindness that man has chosen for himself because of his sin. And it is for this reason that Jesus says in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
So a full week goes by after Jesus Christ has risen, but there is no joy in Thomas’ heart because of his unbelief. For Thomas, the resurrection of Jesus has not yet become true. And yet, there is enough hope in his heart (or perhaps some doubting of his doubts) that he chooses to gather with the other apostles on the following Sunday. And it is then and there, with the doors shut, and the church assembled, that Jesus chooses to appear, stands in their midst and says, “Peace be unto you.”
We then read in verse 27 what Jesus says directly to Thomas, “Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.”
So how does Jesus condescend to his elect when they are doubting, when they are being carnal?
Well, note first that He does not come to Thomas immediately. He makes him wait. He gives him time to repent. He gives him time to think it over. And this is often how God deals with us and it is why the Psalmist sometimes cries, “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me” (Ps. 13:1).
Moreover, it is during this period of feeling that God is absent that our faith is tested, and mockers start to run their mouth. The Apostle Peter speaks of this in 2 Peter 3:3-4 saying, “scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?”
So God’s timing and our timing are not the same, and often what we think is the right time for God to show up in the way we want him to, is often not what is actually best for us. And so the Psalmist also prays and exhorts us saying, “Wait on the Lord: Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: Wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps. 27:14).
So Jesus gives Thomas time to change his mind and walk back his bold doubting. And something happens during that week to make Thomas go to church and gather with the disciples. And it is significant that only then and only there, where two or three (or ten) are gathered, that Jesus chooses to appear in the midst of them.
The next thing Jesus does for this doubting apostle is offer to him the proofs he desired, to touch and feel his resurrected body. And by offering his body to Thomas, he also reveals his divinity. Because although Jesus was not physically present when Thomas made those stubborn demands, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe,” Jesus was there listening, He was spiritually present. And this is because Jesus is God and there is no place where God is not. So Jesus was there all along according to His divine nature, even when Thomas was doubting. And it is this truth that should be a great comfort to us when we feel like God is absent. You cannot get away from Him for it is in Him that we live and move and have our being.
David says in Psalm 139:7-12, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.”
So despite the felt darkness that Thomas was living in, the darkness of doubt and unbelief, even in that hell, Jesus was there all along. And Jesus wants Thomas to know that, and so he offers to him the very things he demanded when thinking that Jesus was still dead and absent, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. And be not faithless, but believing.”
In these words, is a kind and gentle rebuke from our Lord, “be not faithless, but believing.”
Doubt and unbelief are sins that we must confess and repent of. Paul says in Romans 14:23, “whatever is not from faith is sin.”
And so do not pretend that doubt is something that just happens to you, but rather, treat doubt as Jesus treats it, as an action and decision of your will to hear the truth and not believe it.
Remember, the sun is up, Christ is risen, this is the truth that saves the world. And so make war on anything thatmight undermine your precious faith. Make war on your doubts and doubters and carnal desires that dull your spiritual senses. Remember how the righteous man lives, “the just shall live by his faith.”
Summary: So Jesus comes to Thomas when he is gathered with the disciples on the Lord’s Day. For where two or three are gathered in love, there is Christ present in a special way. And it is there that Jesus reveals his resurrected humanity and the power of his divinity. And all that is left is for Thomas to keep his word and believe.
Verse 28
28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
We are not told whether Thomas actually touched Jesus or not. The text does not say. Perhaps seeing and hearing Jesus was enough. Either way, Thomas makes a confession that only someone with the grace of faith can make, he calls Jesus “my Lord and my God.”
Notice that seeing and touching Jesus is one thing, it proves his resurrection (here he is!). But it is another thing altogether to believe that this resurrected Jesus is the invisible immortal all wise and only God.
Physical sensation alone cannot get you there, and that is because supernatural truths are not arrived at by the five senses. Supernatural truths are by definition above natura (supra sensible).
Where do you apprehend truth and choose what to believe? In the immaterial and spiritual part of you that the Bible calls the soul, or the mind, or the heart. It is in that part of your being that continues to exist even after your body dies that truth is found and faith is activated.
For as Jesus himself says in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Likewise in 1 Corinthians 2:14 it says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
So you could see and feel the risen Lord Jesus, and still not believe that that Jesus is God. And so what we have here in Thomas confession is the light of the Spirit shining upon him. Thomas sees one thing, and believes another. Thomas sees Jesus with his physical eyes, but he believes a truth in his intellect that physical eyes cannot see, namely the divinity and lordship of Jesus. And therefore, Jesus says in the next verse…
Verse 29
29 Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
Here again, Jesus calls us to become spiritual creatures and not carnal. Thomas was uniquely granted to physically see Jesus, and with that help he then believed that in Jesus was the fullness of the Godhead dwelling bodily.
As a good theologian proceeding from faith, Thomas attributed to the one divine person of the Son, a full humanity and full divinity, “my Lord, and my God.” Orthodox Christology.
But Jesus says, there is a greater blessing, it is more praise-worthy, to believe that same truth without seeing him. And that is because faith is what pleases God.
Finally, in verses 30-31, we are given the purpose for all of this story.
Verses 30-31
30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
The purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection, and the purpose for John writing this all down, was so that you might hear and believe. And by believing have life through his name.
Jesus Christ suffered in the flesh, so that you might die to your flesh and put away your carnal mind. And Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day, so that you too might rise again and become a spiritual creature.
The carnal man settles for carnal goods. But the only good that can satisfy the infinite desire of your soul is a spiritual good, namely God. So make him your best and highest end. Say from faith He is “my lord and my God,” and you also shall be resurrected never to die again.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Sermon: Before The Great Tribulation - Part 2 (Mark 13:5-13)

Before The Great Tribulation – Part 2 (Mark 13:5-13)Sunday, March 17th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 13:1-13
And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! 2 And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? 5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you: 6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. 8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. 9 But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. 10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations. 11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. 12 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. 13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for the promise and comfort of the Scriptures, and that through them we have hope. We ask now that you would enlighten the eyes of our understanding, give us ears to hear, and make us watchful, so that at all times we would be ready to die and see you face to face. We pray this all in Christ’s name, Amen.
Introduction
The title of my sermon this morning is Before The Great Tribulation (Part 2), and last time in Part 1 we introduced some new vocabulary.
We said that eschatology is the doctrine of last things, or the study of how the Christian story ends, and it this topic of eschatology that we are treating as we work through Mark 13.
We then said that there are two different positions on whether or not a particular event or prophecy has been fulfilled. A futurist believes that the prophecy/event will be fulfilled in our future. And the preterist believes the prophecy/event was fulfilled in our past, typically in the 1st century.
And we said that all of us are both futurists and preterists depending on which event or passage of Scripture we are talking about. For example, we are all futurists on the final resurrection and final judgment. We confess as an article of faith that Christ will return bodily just as he ascended (Acts 1:11). At the same time, we are all preterists on the death and resurrection of Christ.
One of the major places of contention amongst Christians is whether you are a futurist or a preterist with regards to the Olivet Discourse, which is recorded in three different places: Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21. And in case you missed last week’s sermon, my position and the one I will be arguing for throughout these sermons is that all of Mark 13 was fulfilled in the 1st century. And so as we work through this chapter verse-by-verse, I will be explaining how exactly that preterist interpretation does justice to everything that Jesus says here.
So for those of you who may have missed Part 1 or for those who just need a refresher, let me briefly summarize what Mark 13 is all about.
Overview of Mark 13
Mark 13 is the longest monologue from Jesus in this gospel, andthis speech comes right after his showdown with all the highest authorities in Jerusalem. In that showdown of chapters 11-12, Jesus condemns the scribes, elders, chief priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees as wolves who devour widows’ houses, who teach false doctrine, and who are full of hypocrisy. Jesus is the stone that the Jewish builders rejected, and yet He is going to become the cornerstone for a new temple, a new people, a new Jerusalem that shall last forever.
And so Jesus like the prophets of old (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.), uses both his words and actions to foretell a coming judgment. First, Jesus physically departs the temple just like the glory of God departed Solomon’s temple in Ezekiel’s day. And upon his departure he says in verse 2, “there shall not be left one stone upon another [in the temple], that shall not be thrown down.”
Then in verse 3 it says, “he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple.” And from this symbolic throne of judgment, from this holy of holies, Jesus answers a question from his disciples which is, “when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?”
And then the rest of Mark 13 is Jesus’ answer to that question.
Notice, the question is not, “When is the end of human history and the final judgment?”
The question is not, “When is the rapture and the bodily return of Jesus Christ?”
The question the disciples are asking is, “When is one stone not going to left upon another? When is the temple going to be destroyed, and what sign shall precede its destruction?” We could also restate the disciples’ question in different terms because in essence they are asking, “When is the kingdom of God going to arrive?”
Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God. He says in Luke 17 that the kingdom of God is inside of you, it is spiritual and invisible. And yet he also speaks of a day when this invisible kingdom shall be manifest, revealed, and in the prophets this is spoken of as the “coming of the Son of Man to receive dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him, his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).
So the disciples know that the end of the temple also means the beginning of Christ’s everlasting kingdom. The coming of the Son of Man to the Ancient of Days is also when “the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever” (Daniel 7:18, 22, 27),
And it this transfer of power from the Old Jerusalem to the New Jerusalem that Jesus is foretelling on the Mount of Olives. That is what the destruction of the temple in AD 70 is all about. It’s not just about physical stones being demolished, it is about the spiritual-political government of the world being transferred from the Roman Beast and Jewish Harlot, to Christ and the saints in Him. This is what the coming of the Son of Man with power and glory is referring to, and it is what Revelation 1-20 describes in great detail.
So that is the broad overview of what Jesus is addressing in Mark 13. It is not the end of our world; it is the end of their old covenant world, which was a system of spiritual government that God describes and reveals in the book of Daniel (and if you are interested in understanding this more, come to the next Mid-Week service where I’ll be teaching on this).
So Jesus describes all of these cataclysmic events in Mark 13:5-29, and then in verse 30 is where he gives a timeframe for when all these things will be fulfilled. He says, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.”
From the disciples’ perspective, all these events will take place within roughly 20-40 years. From our perspective, we know it was a full 40 years until the temple was finally burned to the ground. So they are given that timeframe of one generation, and then Jesus adds in verse 32, “but of that day and hour” of his coming to destroy Jerusalem, “knoweth no man.” So he gives them the order of events, and the broad time range of 40 years, but he refuses to give the exact day or hour of his coming. And therefore, the recurring exhortation in Jesus’ speech is “Take heed,” “Watch,” “Stay Awake,” “Be alert.” Because 40 years is plenty of time to forget, and lose heart, and fall away.
And so for all of the interesting details in this prophecy and how it all plays out, what is most essential is that the disciples are prepared and primed to keep the faith, to proclaim the faith, to pass on the faith, and persevere in faith through the greatest tribulation that there ever was or shall be. The Olivet Discourse is given to bolster the apostles and prepare them to suffer and die for the name.
With that as the setup, let us now expound verses 5-13.
Outline of Verses 5-13
There are five exhortations Jesus gives his disciples. Remember all of these apply in the first instance to the twelve, and only by analogy to us living today.
In verse 5 he says, “Take heed lest any man deceive you,” because false Christs are going to come.
In verse 7 he says, “Be ye not troubled,” because of wars and rumors of wars.”
In verse 9 he says, “Take heed to yourselves” because you will be beaten and brought before rulers to testify.
In verse 11 he says, “take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak,” because the Holy Ghost will speak through you.
And then in verse 13 he gives an implicit exhortation saying, “he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
So let us consider this first exhortation in verse 5-6.
Verses 5-6
Exhortation #1 – “Take Heed Lest Any Man Deceive You”
5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you: 6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
It is the constant and recurring scheme of the devil, that whatever good thing God does or creates, the devil comes up with an alluring counterfeit. The devil is a copycat. The devil is not original. The devil is a liar and a bootlegger, and he always offers something that looks good on the outside, but actually kills you. The packaging of sin is always nice, but once you open it and eat it, you’re dead. This was the temptation in the Garden, and he still runs the same plays today. The world falls for it every time, and sometimes even Christians can become ensnared.
And so Jesus begins with this exhortation to be on guard against false teachers, against deceivers, antichrists, who come in his name. There will not just be a few of these deceivers, but “many.”
How will you know who is a false teacher and who is true teacher?
Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 18 give guidelines for testing the spirits, if you want to look those up.
Jesus says in Matthew 7:15-20, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits…Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
So the apostles themselves are to be good trees, true teachers, who bear good fruit that confirms the truth of their doctrine. False teachers on the other hand will try to appear righteous, but righteous living can only be faked for so long. Eventually you will see the rotten fruit and corruption of their lives, and that will be the giveaway that they are agents of the devil.
This was obviously fulfilled in the 1st century, and we have countless examples of it in the New Testament itself. Almost every single letter that the apostles wrote deals with this problem of false teachers, deceivers, Judaizers, etc.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:13-14, “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.”
When Jesus sends letters to the pastors of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, what is the recurring theme? Throw out and do not tolerate false teachers.
It says in Revelation 2:2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.”
Jesus encourages the church of Ephesus for doing exactly what he tells his disciples to do here in Mark 13, “take heed lest any man deceive you.”
Summary: So deception will come, many false Christs, false apostles, false teachers, and you will know them by their fruits. So that’s exhortation #1, “take heed lest any man deceive you.”
Verses 7-8
Exhortation #2 – “Be Ye Not Troubled”
7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. 8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
So here Jesus is warning about the temptation to despair at all that is going wrong in the world. These are the people who read the news and are full of anxiety. They hear about wars, and earthquakes, and famines, and troubles, and it puts fear into their hearts.If that is you, Jesus says, “do not be troubled.”
And in response, the disciples might have asked, “why?” Shouldn’t we be troubled at all this trouble in the world? Jesus anticipates that question and gives a surprising response, it is essentially, “don’t be troubled, these things must happen and it’s going to get even worse.”
He says, “these are the beginnings of sorrows,” and “the end shall not be yet.”
In other words, these cosmic distresses are just the beginnings of the birth pains, but they are necessary birth pains for the actual delivery/birth of the new creation. So be ye not troubled, this is just Christ reigning from heaven and shaking the earth so that what cannot be shaken shall remain.
What allows the disciples and us to not be troubled, is that Jesus Christ holds the world in his hands. He holds you in his hands. Jesus Christ is in the control center of the universe, and not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from His good pleasure. And Jesus says, “you are far more valuable than sparrows.” He says in Luke 12:32, “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
So for these disciples, all these troubles, wars, famines, earthquakes, etc. were just God in heaven, getting out the wrapping paper to give them the kingdom. The time is not yet, and so be not troubled. This is what must take place before The Great Tribulation (which I take as beginning around 62 AD).
The book of Acts (which covers events from 30 AD-59 AD) records instances of almost all of these kinds of events. And Jesus is describing roughly the same time period that is covered by the first four seals and horsemen in Revelation 6:1-8 (30 AD-61 AD).
To give just a few examples, Acts 16:26 says, “Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.”
Of famine, Acts 11:28 says, “Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world (οἰκουμένη), which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.” This would have happened in 46 AD.
Of persecution it says right after this in Acts 12:1-3, “Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church. Then he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Now it was during the Days of Unleavened Bread.”
James the Apostle was the first of the Twelve to be martyred, and history records that in 62 AD, James the Just (brother of Jesus) was thrown down from the top of the Temple and then beaten to death in the temple court.
The earliest church historians Hegessipus and Eusebius mark this martyrdom of James the Just in 62 AD as the divine reason for the Roman siege against Jerusalem.
Eusebius writes, “So extraordinary a man was James, so esteemed by all for righteousness that even the more intelligent of the Jews thought that this was why the siege of Jerusalem immediately followed his martyrdom. Indeed, Josephus did not hesitate to write, ‘These things happened to the Jews as retribution for James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus who was called Christ, for the Jews killed him despite his great righteousness.’”
So again, we have in the New Testament itself, and from other 1st century sources that these sorrows were common and frequent in the years from Christ’s Ascension in 30 AD leading up to the Great Tribulation around 62 AD. And the exhortation to the apostles and the faithful in the midst of these sorrows was, “be ye not troubled…the end is not yet.”
Verses 9-11
Exhortations #3 & #4 – “Take Heed To Yourselves” and “Don’t Plan Your Testimony Ahead of Time”
9 But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. 10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations. 11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
If we read through the book of Acts, again we see that this was all fulfilled immediately after Christ’s ascension.
In Acts 4, Peter and John are arrested for preaching in the temple, and after they are released it says in verse 31, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”
In Acts 5, the apostles are put on trial again for preaching. Acts 5:29 says, “But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’”
In Acts 6, Stephen is accused of blasphemy and martyred by the Jews after his spirit-filled testimony.
As soon as Paul’s ministry gets under way, the rest of Acts is essentially the story of Paul preaching, getting arrested, and bearing witness in the Holy Spirit. The book of Acts ends in 59 AD with Paul in Rome on house arrest, waiting to bear witness before Nero Caesar.
So we see again, Jesus is not false prophet, all these things took place just like he said they would within one generation.
Now one verse that has sometimes stumbled people into a futurist reading of Mark 13 is verse 10 which says, “And the gospel must first be published among all nations.” And they think that because the Great Commission has not yet been fulfilled, these events must still be off in our future. How do we solve this apparent contradiction? A few points of clarification are in order:
1. First of all, this phrase “all nations” (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη) does not refer to absolutely ever single nation on earth, and we know this because this exact Greek phrasing is used in the LXX of 1 Chronicles 14:17 to speak of King David’s fame. It says, “the fame of David went out into all lands; and the Lord brought the fear of him upon all nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη).” See also 1 Kings 4:34. So unless you think that the fear of David came upon absolutely every single nation on earth in his day, there is no reason for it to mean that when it is used in Mark 13:10.
What “all nations” refers to is all the nations in the Roman Hellenistic Empire.This is confirmed by how Matthew records this same idea in his gospel. Matthew 24:14 says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
The word for “world” here is not cosmos, it is the Greek work οἰκουμένη, which is a technical term for the Roman Empire. When Paul says the gospel is to the Jew first and then to the Greek (Rom. 1:16), the Greeks are those nations within the Roman οἰκουμένη.
We know this because at Christ’s nativity, it says in Luke 2:1 that, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered,” the “all the world” there is this same οἰκουμένη that Jesus is referring to when he says, “all nations.”
Notice also that Jesus does not say all nations will be baptized and fully discipled within one generation, he says that the gospel will be published (κηρύσσω), made known/announced/heralded in all the nations of the Roman οἰκουμένη. And Matthew says that this preaching of the kingdom among all the nations in the Roman world is going to be a witness/testimony (μαρτύριον) to them, and then the end of Jerusalem and the Roman Oikumene will come.
It is God’s habit and regular pattern to give warnings and signs and witnesses/testimony prior to raining down his judgments on a place.He did this with Sodom and Gomorrah, he did it in Noah’s day by the building of the Ark, and so the gospel is a testimony like the Ark is a testimony, a flood is coming!
2. A second reason to believe verse 10 was fulfilled in the 1st century is because the New Testament itself says explicitly that the gospel went out to the whole world, it was published in all nations, within the lifetime of the apostles.
In 57 AD, Paul says in Romans 15, “from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.” And then he says at the very end of Romans, in Romans 16:26, that the mystery of the gospel is “now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith.”
In 60 AD, when he wrote Colossians 1:7 he says, “the word of the truth of the gospel…has come to you, as it has also in all the world (κόσμος).” And then again in verse 23 he says, “You were reconciled…if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
When the book of Acts ends in 59 AD, Paul tells the Jews in Acts 28:28, “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” In other words, Paul has fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied about his apostolic ministry. He says in Acts 13:47, For so the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
So according to the Apostle Paul, by 59 AD, the gospel had been published throughout the entire Greco-Roman oikumene, to all the nations, and as Matthew’s version has it, this would be a legal witness to them that Christ’s kingdom had come and his glorious enthronement as Son of Man would soon take place.
So this is what verse 10 is referring to, “the gospel must first be announced among all the nations in the Roman Empire.” This is different than what we call “The Great Commission,” which is the baptizing, teaching, and discipling of all the nations on planet earth. This work is still ongoing and shall indeed be completed before Christ’s bodily return. But that is not what is in view here in Mark 13 or Matthew 24.
Conclusion
Let us close with the fifth and final exhortation Jesus gives in verse 12-13:
12 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. 13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Paul says in 2 Timothy 2, “that in the last days (referring to the last days of the old covenant age) perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God…”
Jesus and Paul are both describing what living through the great tribulation is going to be like. What we call the natural bonds of affection, between parents and children, brothers and sisters, a mother and her baby, those bonds are going to be broken because of people’s hatred for Christ and his followers. And it is the breaking of these most intimate bonds that if left unchecked, would destroy the whole world. This is why Jesus says a few verses later in verse 20, “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.”
This is why it is so important to have God as your Father, and Christ as your elder brother, and the Holy Spirit who indwells the church as your Mother. Because without these spiritual bonds, without this threefold cord of the Holy Trinity, all of us would fall away. Apart from the grace of God, none of us would be able to endure unto the end.
So if you would become and remain a Christian, you must take these words of Jesus to heart. You must remember that you follow a Jesus who said this, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”
So count the cost, and know that God is of infinite value. Friendship with God is more to be prized than the best and closest relationships we have on earth. And when the days get hard, when relationships are strained because of your religion, remember the promise of Christ, that he who endures unto the end shall be saved.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Sermon: Before The Great Tribulation - Part 1 (Mark 13:1-4)

Before The Great Tribulation – Part 1Sunday, March 3rd, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 13:1-13
And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! 2 And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? 5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you: 6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. 8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. 9 But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. 10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations. 11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. 12 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. 13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Prayer
O Father your Word says that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search it out. As we desire to be kingly and to search out these words of the Lord Jesus, and try to understand them, we ask for divine illumination. We ask for the Holy Spirit. We ask for all of this in Christ’s name, Amen.
Introduction
Well, we are back in the Gospel of Mark this morning and have come to what is perhaps the most difficult chapter in the book. Mark 13 is the longest monologue from Jesus in this gospel, and in it he prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the old creation.
Now what makes this chapter difficult is not really the words themselves (which are pretty straightforward), but rather all the false ideas that we import and bring to this text when we hear it. There are entire denominations of Christians who have interpreted this chapter wrongly and from those errant (but often well-meaning) conclusions they have constructed a vision of the future that is not a true or accurate portrait.
I speak primarily of the viewpoint that teaches that the world is going from bad to worse, at some point the Antichrist is going to come, and there will be an evil one-world government that persecutes Christians and brings about The Great Tribulation. And then there is debate amongst these proponents as to whether a rapture will occur before, during, or after this Great Tribulation. For those of you familiar with the books or movies “Left Behind,” it is this dispensational reading of Scripture that has blinded many Christians from a biblical vision of the future. Which is a future far more glorious and full of hope than what the doomsdayers and alarmists continually perpetuate.
And so before we get into the first four verses of this chapter, we need to do some ground clearing exercises so that we can come to this passage and hear what Jesus is actually saying.
So I want to begin by defining a few terms for us that you will likely hear as we study this chapter.
1. The first term is eschatology. What is eschatology? Eschatology is simply the doctrine of last things.
Theology is the doctrine of God
Anthropology is the doctrine of man.
Protology is the doctrine of Creation/beginnings.
Eschatology is the doctrine of how things end.
So under this heading eschatology are things like, the resurrection of the dead. What happens when you die? Where does your soul go after death? What is heaven like? What is hell like? What is the final judgment? What happens after the final judgment? How should we understand the book of Revelation, and so forth. These are all eschatological questions.
And so what eschatology is concerned with is how the Christian story ends. Genesis tells us how the story began, how we ended up in such a sorry state. And then scattered throughout the rest of the Bible, but especially in the final chapters of Revelation, we are told how the story ends. This is what eschatology is concerned with.
Now the difficulty when it comes to a passage like Mark 13, is knowing which parts of it, if any, are referring to events that are future to us.
We know that Jesus is speaking about events that are future to his disciples, but the question for us is, is there anything in this chapter that is still in our future? And how you answer that question is going to make a BIG difference in your understanding of how the Christian story ends.
And so there are two other terms I want to introduce that signify which position someone holds on a particular passage. And those two labels or positions are called Futurism and Preterism.
What is futurism? Futurism is what it sounds like. It is the belief that a certain event is still in our future.
Preterism, on the other hands believes that an event has already happened and is therefore in the past.
So all of us are both futurists and preterists, depending on which text or prophecy or event we are discussing.
For example, we are all futurists in regards to the resurrection of our bodies and the bodily return of Jesus Christ.
The angel says in Acts 1:11 after Christ’s ascension, “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” And so we confess as an article of faith when we recite the Nicene Creed, “he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead…[and] I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” Those things are still future to us living in 2024 AD.
Now the places of controversy are whether someone is a futurist or preterist on say, the book of Revelation. If you are a futurist, is it all in the future? Or just chapters 4-22?
My position on Revelation (which is of course the correct position), is that chapters 1-19 are all 1st century events (I am preterist there), and chapters 20-22 describe the period that began in AD 70, and continues to the final consummation when Christ returns. I am futurist on chapters 21-22.
So bringing this all back to Mark 13, the question before us now is which of these events were fulfilled in the 1st century and are therefore in our past. And which events, if any, are still in the future.
The position that I will contend for and seek to demonstrate throughout this series of sermons is that all of Mark 13 was fulfilled in the 1st century.
There are many arguments for this position and we’ll get into some of them this morning, but the clearest is what Jesus says in Mark 13:30. After all the wars and rumors of wars, after the abomination of desolation, after the stars fall from the sky, after all of that, Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.”
“This generation” refers to that generation of Jews then living, and in biblical terms a generation was a period of roughly 20-40 years.
So Jesus answers the disciples’ question in verse 4, about when the temple will be destroyed by first describing all of these cataclysmic events that will precede it, and he says here’s a list of things that must happen first, and then he guarantees that “this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.” And then he says in verse 32-33, “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. 33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.”
So just as Jesus said in Acts 1:7, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power,” so also he says that the day and hour of his coming to destroy Jerusalem is not for them to know. But what they can know is all the events that must happen first, and that his word of prophecy (“not one stone will be left upon another”) will be fulfilled within one generation.
Summary: Mark 13 is all about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Son of Man coming to judge the old world and transfer the kingdom to the saints. This is exactly what Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 prophesied, and it is also what the book of Revelation describes in great detail. So this is not a prophecy about the end of our world, it is a prophesy about the end of the old covenant world and its spiritual-political government.
Moreover, if Mark’s gospel alone were not enough to convince us of this 1st century fulfillment, this same prophesy and timestamp is recorded in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 as well. God intended to give us three witnesses to this prophesy (“the Olivet Discourse”) so that we could compare and contrast and see that in every case, the conclusion is the same. The Old Creation and the Temple that held it together, is going to be destroyed within one generation. And, it turns out, that is exactly what happened in AD 70, as both secular and Christian history records for us.
So we ought to be preterists on the Olivet Discourse, on Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21, because to be a futurist is at its worse, to call Jesus a false prophet (as many atheists and liberal biblical scholars have called him), and at best to badly misinterpret a central teaching of the New Testament.
So with that as a long setup, let us expound these opening verses of Mark 13.
Verses 1-2
And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! 2 And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Remember the context. It is the week of Passover. It is springtime. And in just a few days Jesus is going to be crucified for the sins of the world. He has just refuted all the most influential authorities in Jerusalem, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, elders, and chief priests. He has demolished their false teaching and proclaimed the truth.
This is the work of a priest and a prophet to investigate the health of God’s house and its leadership, and to pronounce judgment upon it.
Just as the priest and prophet Ezekiel was carried in the spirit through the first temple and destroyed it by his prophecies (Ezekiel 43:3), so also Jesus visits the second temple and pronounces destruction upon it by his words and actions.
First, he physically departs the temple, just as God’s glory departed the temple in Ezekiel’s day. And as they are leaving, and his disciples are admiring the stones and craftsmanship of the buildings, Jesus says, “Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
This is the prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction, and it this prophecy that provokes the disciples to ask about when this going to happen.
Verses 3-4
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?
What we have here are two rival temples with two rival peoples. In Jerusalem you have the temple of the Jews and their corrupt and apostate worship. And then you have Jesus, the new temple, the one who is Himself holy, holy, holy, and he sits “upon the mount of Olives over against the temple.”
The Mount of Olives is almost certainly the same mountain upon which Jesus was crucified. And he was most likely crucified to a living olive tree. The olive tree is a symbol of the Holy of Holies and is associated with the Holy Spirit and the church who possess the Holy Spirit.
The two cherubim that stood above the mercy seat in the holy of holies were carved out of olive wood. The doors that lead into the holy of holies were carved out of olive wood (1 Kings 6:32-33).
David says in Psalm 52:8, “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God,” meaning, he clings to the mercy seat in the holy of holies by faith.
In Romans 11, the Apostle Paul describes the church as an olive tree, where unfaithful branches are cut off, and wild olive trees are grafted in.
So we have in this scene the Lord Jesus, who is the holy place, who is the head of the church, sitting upon the Mount of Olives. On one side, you have the Old Jerusalem and its corrupt priesthood and followers, and on the other side, you have the New Jerusalem and the priesthood of Christ with his disciples. True church and false church. True Jews and false Jews. And it is from this new holy of holies, this new throne upon which he sits on the Mount of Olives, that Jesus pronounces the end of the Old World.
Now pay close attention to the question in verse 4 that the disciples are asking, because the rest of this chapter is Jesus’ answer to that question. The disciples are not asking about the end of the space-time continuum. They are not asking about the final judgment and the end of the all things. Jesus has just said the temple will be destroyed and they say, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?”
The disciples knew that the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was a destruction of the entire cosmic, spiritual, and political order of the old creation. And this is because the Old Testament teaches that the Israel is a priestly nation who mediates God’s blessings and curses to the whole world.
God says in Exodus 19:6, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”
Remember the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 is, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
So the whole purpose of God calling Abraham, and making a covenant with him, and calling Israel out of Egypt, and making them into a priestly nation, and then giving them all of the sacrificial offerings and festivals and the priesthood and tabernacle, was so that God’s House would be a house of prayer for all nations.
Just as Adam was the head of the human race, the high priest was a Son of Man, a son of Adam, who functioned as a kind of federal representative not only of Israel, but of the whole world.
If someone had committed accidental manslaughter and fled to a city of refuge, the law states that they had to remain there until the death of the high priest. Because anytime innocent blood is shed, is must be atoned for, and only the death of a high priest could “reset” the system.
The high priest symbolically carried the sins of the nation and the whole world upon his shoulders. And when they offered sacrifices of animals, of incense, and of prayers to God, they were atoning/covering (pleading the blood of the Passover lamb) for the sins of the whole world. That is what it means to be priestly nation mediating God’s covenant promise to Abraham.
So what happens if those sacrifices stop? What happens if the priestly nation apostatizes? What happens when the high priest is corrupt? What happens when the Gentiles are not allowed to pray and offer sacrifices unto God? All those sins start to pile up. It is like static electricity building and building. They are going without atonement, without covering, and when blood goes uncovered it cries out for vengeance!
This is why Jesus says in Matthew 23, after pronouncing all of the woe’s against the scribes and Pharisees, “That upon you (Jerusalem) may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation” (Matt. 23:35-36).
The high priest and the sacrificial system was really only a way to delay judgment until the coming of Christ.
And because of the Jews rejection of Christ, and because of their blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and their persecution of his witnesses, there is no atonement left for them. And so it is upon them that all the righteous blood that was ever shed is going to be required. And so Jesus says in Luke’s version of the Olivet Discourse, “For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.”
Paul says likewise in Hebrews 10:26, warning Jewish Christians of this same judgment, “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”
So either you accept Christ’s sacrifice on your behalf, and die by faith in him. Or, you die in your own sins. You pay the price, and that price is eternal torment in the lake of fire. This is why Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Because they have rejected the revealed will of God for them. As it says in 1 Timothy 2:4, “God desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Application: Right before this verse Paul commands the church saying, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.”
The New Testament Church, we who are the New Jerusalem, we who are a royal priesthood, a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9), who have been made kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1:6), now have the responsibility to plead the blood of Jesus for our nation. It is our morning and evening sacrifices of praise and worship, it is our weekly prayers of intercession and offerings unto God, that now mediate God’s blessings and curses in the world. Those who bless the church God blesses, those who curse and persecute the church, God shall destroy.
The church is what holds the world together. We who are in Christ are the Son of Man that Daniel saw ascend to the Ancient of Days, and of whom it says in Daniel 7:14, “And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
This is the kingdom that Christ came to bring, and in future weeks we will see the how and the when of Christ’s kingdom arriving. For now, just know that as Jesus answers in verse 30, it came within one generation, just like he said it would.
Conclusion
Jesus Christ is presently reigning from heaven right now, just like he began to reign in the 1st century when he ascended to heaven. And throughout the centuries, Christ has come in judgment upon many nations, and he continues to steer history, and footstool his enemies, and the promise of Psalm 110 and 1 Corinthians 15 and many other passages is that, “he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 27 For he hath put all things under his feet…And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”
This is how the story ends, with every wrong made right. And every tear wiped away. And death made no more. And God all in all. May He hasten that glorious day.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.