The Gospel Of Mark - When is the End?

Good morning, how's everyone.

My name is Kelly, i'm one of the pastors here And it's just so great to get to see you guys and get to share with you this morning.

I want to kind of start with a little story and kind of going back to my childhood, when I was five years old And that time in my life I was really wanting to learn how to swim And I had not learned that yet.

And our neighbor up the street, mr James, had a pool, a neighborhood pool.

He just let all the kids come.

And so one Saturday morning I had just been talking about it and talking I want to learn how to swim And my older brother, who was about, i think, 12, and my sister, who was 14 at the time, said OK, we'll teach you, so let's go before everybody gets there.

So we got up that Saturday morning, went up the street, went to the pool and they walked to the edge and they grabbed my hand and said are you ready to learn to swim?

And they tossed me into the deep end, five years old, and in the middle of my anger and fear.

And getting to the other side, i got.

You would never have seen a more angry five year old kid in your life, but I just I learned to swim And this is a little bit like what it's like when we come to Mark, chapter 13.

Mark 13 · chapter mention

We've been in the series on Mark and we're in chapter 13 now, and so it's just a little bit deep and not a little a lot complex passage, and it's the words of Jesus, a prophetic word about the end times, and it just as an introduction to you.

I want to read this from from another preacher, which I'll comment on later in the passage.

But you ready, here we go.

Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters in Christ, today we gather to explore the profound teachings found in Mark, chapter 13.

Mark 13 · chapter mention

This chapter provides a unique perspective on the end times, encouraging us to remain faithful in our faith, prepared for trials and watchful for the signs of Jesus return.

In a world filled with uncertainties and challenges, this passage holds timeless truths that will inspire and equip us to navigate the storms of life.

So let us delve into the rich tapestry of Mark 13 and discover the wisdom it offers for our journey of faith.

And that's really true.

So let's pray and ask God to help us open our ears and hearts and minds.

Father, we're just thankful for your word this morning as we get ready to read it.

Father, i pray that you would apply it.

Let us hear every word of Lord and let it go deep into our souls and our spirits.

Help us to understand, lord And Lord, we ask you to change us.

As we even read through the passage, lord, we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

So, if you're there, mark 13, we're just going to begin in verse one.

This is a pretty extensive passage, but follow along as I read.

And it says and as he came out of the temple, he, being Jesus, one of his disciples said to him look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings.

And Jesus said to him do you see these great buildings that will not be left here, one stone upon another that will not be thrown down?

And as he said, on the Mount of Olives, opposite the temple, peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately tell us when will these things be And what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?

And Jesus began to say to them see that no one leads you astray.

Many will come in my name saying I am he, and they will lead many astray.

And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.

This must take place, but the end is not yet, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines.

These are but the beginning of the birth pangs.

But be on your guard, for they will deliver you over to councils and you will be beaten in synagogues and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them.

And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations.

And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you're to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.

And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father, his child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be, let the reader understand.

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Let the one who is in the house top not go down nor enter his house to take anything out, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.

And, alas, for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that it may not happen winter, for in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and never will be.

And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved.

But for the sake of the elect whom he chose, he shortened the days.

And then, if anyone says, do you look, here is the Christ, or look there he is, do not believe it, for false Christ and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

But be on guard.

I have told you all these things beforehand.

But in those days after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light And the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect, from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven, from the fig tree, learn its lesson.

As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.

So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

Truly, i say to you this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Be on guard, keep awake, for you do not know when the time will come.

It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeepers to stay, doorkeepers to stay awake.

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning, lest he comes suddenly and finds you asleep.

And what I say to you, i say to all stay awake.

And by the look on your faces this morning, those last few verses were pretty appropriate because you look like you're about to fade out right now.

So, as I said, a long passage, complex passage.

Let me just kind of give you a few observations for the text before we get into it.

And this is now day three of Passion Week and Jesus has been going through and discussing and talking with you know, the people in the temple, including those who were opposing to him, and this will be his final extended teaching in the gospel, this gospel of Mark.

It's by far, as I said, the longest block of teaching we find here in the gospel And it really highlights, i think, because it's the longest, that it may be the most important.

All three synoptic gospels Matthew, mark and Luke include it, and so I think the Lord wants us to pay attention to this.

Traditionally it was known as the Olivet Discourse because it's staged up on the top of Mount Olive, the Olive Mountains in there.

It was given by the Lord.

So what we have here is a prophetic, i guess a prophetic teaching Unveiling the Future by the Lord Jesus.

And I want you to understand he doesn't go into all the details that you could find in the scriptures.

There's so many things that connect to this.

He gives basically a big picture for us And it's important.

These are the last things Jesus teaches And that's the subject of eschatology.

Eschatology is the teaching about last things And it's important for us to know because the church, if it's going to be pure in the early church, what made the church was pure is because they were looking forward to Jesus coming again.

So this is our hope, and when you have this hope that Jesus comes, then guess what You want to be ready for it.

And that's really what this passage is all about.

You know, i was just thinking about our culture, and anytime you kind of mention things about end times, messages or last days subjects, everybody is interested, everybody's interested.

It's kind of uncanny.

They'll ignore other things, but this subject seems to catch the attention of even non-Christians.

So we all want to know.

We all want to know about the end.

Just thinking back to scriptures, the prophet Daniel gives a prophecy of the end times.

When we went through that book of Daniel and at the end of it God told Daniel Daniel, seal up the book until the end of time, when many will rush here and there and knowledge will increase.

Well, that's certainly true, isn't it?

And we see there that the angels want to know, because it says how long will it be until these shocking events are over.

One of the angels says that, asks that Daniel wants to know.

He asks how will all this finally end?

And God says to him go your way, daniel, shut the book, you can go your way.

But history is kind of littered with this idea.

Church setters, date setters, i mean everybody wants to find out what the date of the end times is.

And we get this verse in the end of this passage and Jesus himself says it.

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows.

No one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father.

I Don't know, you don't know, only the father knows.

So don't set dates, don't set dates.

I remember back a few years ago, back in 1988, i got this thing in the mail called 88 reasons why the Lord will return, in 1988, by Ed Wison.

I still remember his name.

I kept the book for a long time.

You know it's just kind of like okay, yeah.

But you know people will go to great leagues to find out these things and I want you to understand what Jesus is telling us.

He wants to, wants to move us off of this.

I don't know wrong focus to something else.

We're gonna see what it is.

But even after his resurrection We find an ax 1, verse 7, right before his ascension, and his disciples come to him a final time and they ask these things and he replies The father alone has the authority to set those dates and times.

They are not for you to know And you see, there are some things we're just not meant to know.

So the Bible says the secret things belong to the Lord, our God.

There's children forever.

So it's it's something that we need to to think about, but it's not something we need to make it a right Right off as a hobby horse or something we focus on all the time.

Here's the thing Jesus doesn't dodge this question by these disciples, but he asked us to consider a vastly, vastly more important question and that is are you living fully and Faithfully for Jesus in the here and now?

Because we don't know, we don't know the end date of human history and guess what we should be ready for Christ coming all the time, today and every day.

So let me give you this kind of and kind of just want to go through it, and seven what I just call movements, then they're in just the order as Jesus gives them.

They're concerning the future as they're given to us by him and I've just kind of numbered these To give some thoughts, put some thoughts, hang your thoughts on.

And the first, let's begin with the occasion for these words of Jesus, what I call a disturbing prediction.

A disturbing prediction.

This is in Mark, chapter 1, verse 1.

Mark 1:1

Mark begins this chapter with Jesus Guess what walking out of the temple for the final time.

And it says, as he came out of the temple and if you recall When Jesus had been, he had come into the temple on Tuesday of the, the other day, the prior day, a Jewish Temple there that morning.

And 11 chapter, chapter 11 or 27, if you want to reference and see when he's walking around in there the false teachers come up to Jesus and they basically try to challenge his authority.

And And Jesus receives after that to tell a story about them and he ends up calling them a tenant farmers Over a failed vineyard.

He goes on to say you don't know the power of the scriptures, and then he also talks about how much of a hypocrite they all are, and he actually gives examples.

He names names if you will.

And So he has a scathing rebuke for these.

He's mentioned, and you can read about it more fully in Matthew 23,.

But as I read that, i see Jesus was bold, wasn't he?

he didn't meant words and he told truth as it needed to be told.

And so, following this rebuke, jesus, as it says here, he comes out of the temple, he makes his exit from the temple and this is the end of his public ministry.

He's walking out, he's leaving it for the last time and And we should see, i think, in this short phrase, more than simply a physical walking out, what he's doing, he's, it's a metaphor for for God departing a failed religious system.

He's acting that out.

So don't miss that.

This is Jesus is making a statement here that God has left the building, Along with the glory that was formerly there.

So if you want to see a fascinating parallel to this, i give you another couple of places.

Under Ezekiel, chapters 10 and 11, it talks about the departed glory of the temple.

Ezekiel 10 · chapter mention

Under Solomon's temple, you see, there were two temples Solomon's temple, which was destroyed, and this is the second temple, and Jesus is walking out of it Saying good, god's glory is out of here, I'm out of here and he's walking out.

So just as Jesus is walking out, some of his disciples walk up to him and and it's almost like And it's almost like I just kind of see it as a, as a naive, a little coming.

It's like they're on a field trip or something and say they, they walk up to him and say, do you see how beautiful these buildings are?

and Look, teacher, what wonderful store stones and what wonderful buildings.

And I guess outwardly, the, the temple must have been a Pretty awe-inspiring.

I don't think we have any idea what disappeared to be, because it was really admired.

It was admired in the ancient world, around the world.

Jesus, josephus Compared it to a beautiful snow-capped mountain.

Antacitus, the Jewish historian, a Roman historian, called it immensely opulent.

So this was a.

This was an incredible, incredible place.

According to Josephus, it had stones that were them formed the temple that were Measuring 37 and a half feet long, 12 feet high and 18 feet deep.

Some of the stones weighed more than a 100 tons.

And if you've ever had the chance to go to to Jerusalem and stand at the wailing wall, they have some of these massive Stones which are really not the, the original temple, but it's the, the superstructure, but they're still incredibly large.

This must have been an amazing place.

And While they're owing in over, eyeing over it his disciples, jesus turns around and he makes a startling prediction Do you see, these great buildings, there's not gonna be one stone Left upon one another that will not be thrown down.

And, as Matthew 23, 38 ads, see, your house is left to you desolate.

God has walked out And there's a judgment on what was, what was there?

So Jesus?

and then, at this point, jesus and his disciples make their way, they come away from the temple Mount, they walk down the the incline to the Kidron Valley and they go up the other side, which is on to the Mount of Olives, and There they have a commanding view of the temple, there, sitting themselves down right across from it, 300 feet higher, and so they have a panoramic view of the temple complex, the whole thing.

And this is where Jesus sits down, and, as you know when, when a teacher sits in that day It was it was a sign that he was getting ready to teach, and this is what he does.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, said that from such a vantage point one could look across the Kidron Valley and could see Directly into the entrance of the holy of Holies.

What a, what an incredible view.

So they have this big picture of it.

And so Jesus, disturbing prediction, has left the disciples with a second thing, a burning question, and that is in verses three through thirteen.

Says there, and, as he said, on the Mount of Olives, the opposite the temple, peter and James and John and Andrew Ask him privately, tell us when these things will be and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished, these things referring back to when is the temple going to be destroyed?

when is the the thing gonna fall to pieces and Everything fall apart?

so it's a two-fold question.

Think about it.

When, in other words, jesus give us a timetable?

and He also asked, they ask what?

give us a sign so that we'll know that we're close to the end?

It's the same question everybody asked today when and what.

And, by the way, to me the odd thing is that they didn't ask why.

Why it was the temple even being destroyed in the first place, because they had failed to carry out and be obedient to the, to the mission that God had called the Jewish people to, he called Israel to, and so that's why it's a judgment.

And Jesus responds to the prophetic, to their question, with this prophetic answer describing Signs that all begin to occur even in their own lifetimes, especially in verses three through four, thirteen all of these things, these things Underline, those words, indicate maybe just the opposite of what you might expect, but he says at the very end of that the end is not yet.

The end is not yet.

So it's interesting me.

A lot of times we'll point out things in the world around us and we'll go hmm, i've heard people say to me Do you think this?

we're close to the end?

all these things going on around us, all this chaos and and Violence and everything in the world, do you think this is the end?

Well, let me just Bring us back to what he told these disciples.

In verses four through eight, he mentions Several things that were going on.

Number one, spiritual deception.

Number two, global conflict.

Number three, natural disasters.

And number four, social disorder Any different than now.

And so he's trying to get them to see, you know, to get their focus on some other things.

These are all going on, these are gonna happen.

And in verses nine through thirteen, jesus predicts persecution and even martyrdom for one's faith.

Still going on.

Yeah, so this has been going on from the time he predicted it to even our day, and describing these things as what he calls them, the beginning of birth, pangs, and and I think this is a really helpful picture, a Word picture here for us for several reasons.

First, is that when you talk about the beginning of the pains at the beginning, it implies that the, the famine, the war, the earthquakes they do have some connection to the end, but they don't necessarily mean that we're at the end, right?

so You know, it made me think back to our days when we had, you know, we had five children, and those times when My wife was pregnant and there were things that that were called False labor pains, false labor pains.

And when things start out, you think, okay, we're gonna have a baby.

Well, it could be two or three days later.

I mean, you know, it could be a long time.

The pains are not always indicative of the timing, right?

So this is kind of what Jesus is getting at.

The second thing that the labor pains analogy gives us is birth.

It is one of the most painful experiences that I think women can go through, i will say, unless you've had a kidney stone, and although that's another story, no one to talk about that.

But here's the thing when that, when the end does come, it will be very painful for all of humanity.

And These sorrows that he talks about are experienced all through history.

They just get more frequent and more painful, and that's true with the birth, birth process.

The pains increase in frequency and intensity, until Jesus returns in his power in glory.

Well, there's a third thing I want you to see from these this analogy of the birth pains, the fruit that comes from it, the fruit of all that labor pain Guess what?

It's something beautiful, isn't it?

All that pain culminates in joy and just celebration of a new life.

And so this picture that Jesus gives us here, it looks beyond the pain that we experience in the world that those disciples were going to see to a kingdom that was going to come out of it, and the kingdom of Christ.

And here's the thing about waiting for birth.

You know, unless you get a C-section or something like that, you don't know when that birth is going to be.

No doctor can predict that, no man can predict that, only God.

There's a time to be born, he says.

And so this is the same thing.

When Jesus looks at the end, he's talking about this as an analogy to the birth pain.

So Jesus is teaching that the destruction of the temple is a paradigm of something bigger.

It says something that is future and a pattern.

The way we should think about the end of the age is it illustrates the same thing.

This is what he's getting at in these verses.

So what am I saying?

The destruction of the temple is a turning point in the history of salvation.

Don't miss this.

Don't dismiss or make light of the fact that the temple is going away.

You say, what does that have to do with me?

Well, everything, if you want to be a follower of Christ, because it means the kingdom has come to you, because something else has gone away.

That's old and he's brought something new.

And guess what?

God does not dwell in temples made of hands that people made.

Bible says that.

Where does he dwell?

He now dwells in us, and that's a wonderful thing, right?

So this is a good thing, he says, don't?

he just kind of warns his disciples then, when you see all these things around you and going around you, don't be let astray, don't be alarmed, don't be anxious, but be on your guard and endure to the very end.

So, which means Christians?

Christians should be the most stable people in all the world.

When you see all your friends and family and neighbors talking about these things, you should be the person who carries the peace, because you have Jesus and you know where this is headed and where it's going.

When everything seems to be falling apart, when everyone is stressed out, you know the believer should carry that testimony within them, and this is what Jesus is getting at Everybody.

Everybody wants to know the future so they can prepare for it.

You know why?

I think that is.

I thought about this this week.

Everybody wants to know.

I want to know this.

It's because I mean, you think about it.

Whole ministries are based on the subject of the end times, whole websites are devoted to it, books, reams of books, have been written about it, books are being given about it, and there's this wild numbers of speculations, many of them that don't even don't even consult the Bible.

But here's the thing Why do we want to know the end?

Because we fear.

We fear what may come our way, and if we can control it, then we won't have to fear it, and I think that's what's driving so many of these initiatives like I mean you think about some things in the world, like climate change and Bill Gates and all those things he's doing, gender issues.

It's fear.

If I can control it, then I won't have to fear it.

But the Christian has nothing to fear.

He has nothing to fear.

The fact is, i would say, we are living in terrible times.

We are Second Timothy 3 says it like this where men and women love themselves, love themselves most, love money, are boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, and much, much more.

And you probably see that, just like I do.

The birth pains are getting stronger and more frequent, stronger and more frequent.

Jesus is basically saying to these followers, as he is to us in verse 7, stop whining in fear.

Literally, that's what it says Stop whining in fear, don't get sidetracked by these things.

Keep your wits about you, you of all people, christian, because you're the witness to this world in a terrible, in terrible times, and I think it's easy for us to get sidetracked and to misinterpret the turbulent affairs of history, because it can get confusing confusing for all of us, in fact.

The signs of the times, though, may be the greatest time for you and me to share Christ, since even non-Christians are paying attention to these things.

So now we move from a disturbing prediction by Jesus regarding the destruction of the temple, and then he goes on to make these prophetic statements about the times as something more specific, because it's, thirdly, the trigger for the end.

The trigger for the end in verses 14 through 18.

He says but when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be, let the reader understand.

Then let those who are in Judea flee, and this kind of pulls together how Jesus' prophetic word functions in this passage.

And whenever you see and interpret the Bible, here's the thing the Holy Spirit.

Through the Bible, the biblical text, he has a message that is meant for that context, in other words of those disciples in that day, as he always does, and he also has a message for us, in our context, and so he's speaking a word to us, and this is true in every passage of the Bible.

When you try to understand the Bible, so to approach this correctly, we first need to see what it meant to them, to see how it applies to us.

Does that make sense?

So who or what in the world is this abomination of desolation?

You heard the phrase, i'm sure, and he puts in parentheses there let the reader understand And Jesus didn't write that.

This is an editor who is rewriting the words of Mark and he inserts this phrase let the reader understand.

What is that?

Well, it's a cryptic statement and it kind of is a way of communicating about something or someone without naming names.

You put it that way.

If you said you know, i don't know, do you kind of get what I'm saying?

You kind of know what somebody's talking about, because they know the situation as well as you and you don't want to say too much, and this was likely intended to give the reader just enough information to help them put together what's going on.

So, do you get this?

You know what I'm talking about?

And you think about.

This was a time when believers were literally living in holes in the ground because they feared for the life because of the persecution that was occurring.

And so if, really, if I name names, i might put my life at risk, and so I'm just kind of going to give you a hint.

So the editor here is like a spiritual whistleblower, if you will.

He's trying to give them hints without giving himself away.

So, and here's where it helps to compare scripture with scripture, which gives us some clues, and let me give you just a couple of these, which will hopefully point us in the right direction.

One of these is Matthew 24, 15 and 16.

You want to write that reference.

It says so when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing the holy place, let the reader understand and let those who were in Judea flee to the mountain.

And so what we're reading here is about the same as Mark's, except he adds this one important piece of information that it was spoken of by the prophet Daniel.

So what do we do?

We go back and look at the prophet Daniel.

Daniel And I'll give you some more references Daniel 927, 1131, 1211, as well as Jewish history, all speak of a person who would ultimately defile and profane the Jewish temple.

And this was literally fulfilled in 167 BC, when the Syrian general Antiochus came in and he erected an altar of Zeus on the altar of burnt offering And he sacrificed a pig on it, which led to the Jewish Maccabean revolt.

And you go back in history and you see all this that happened.

This was a famous event that happened, but that person in that event was called the Abomination of Desolation.

And then I'll just read it to you from Maccabean It says now, on the 15th day of Chislev, in the 145th year, they erected a desolating sacrilege on the altar of burnt offering.

They also built altars in the surrounding towns of Judah.

This is what happened back in 167 BC.

Abomination of Desolation.

And the point that Jesus is making, he's hinting at this, is that this, what he's just described to these disciples, is like that.

So in the context, for these first readers, this is sort of like a sign that need to be watching for.

The question is, who is this person who is just really leads up to the destruction of the temple, who is called the abomination of desolation?

Now, who is this?

now Jesus.

And again we compare scripture with scripture.

The Luke's Gospel helps us here.

Luke 20, 21,.

It says but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

Then let those who were in Judea flee to the mountains.

And then in Luke 19, verse 43, for the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you, and then and him you in on every side.

Luke 19:43

And so what we know?

we have the benefit of looking back from our side, back to Jesus day, and we know this is exactly what happened.

In 70 AD, the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem and leveled Jerusalem and the temple to the ground.

So, as one writer put it, jesus words would be fulfilled when the Romans, the human means of divine wrath, erected scaffolds around the walls of the temple And its buildings, fill them with wood and other flammable material and set them on fire.

The intense heat from the fires caused the stones to crumble.

After it was further dismantled and sifted to find all the melted gold, the rubble.

The gold was from the temple.

The rubble was thrown down into the Kidron Valley.

Only the huge foundation stones remained largely intact.

Those stones, however, were not part of the temple itself, but supports for the retaining wall.

So he's given this second.

This is the abomination of desolation.

And who was it?

Well, we know now that it was the Roman general, emperor Titus, and that's a historical fact just like the other.

So Jesus is building for us a pattern for the next one.

Here's where the passage gets difficult to follow, because he's still talking about the abomination of desolation, and even though the destruction under Titus fits in some ways.

In other ways you look at this passage and it just doesn't fit.

It doesn't fit Jesus' teaching about the destruction of the temple that he's just told the disciples about 70 AD sort of morphs.

It transitions, it moves into something about the future, and sometimes we can't detect it so easily when he's talking about their day and a future day.

So it functions sort of as a symbol of something that's still coming.

It's still coming.

It's still coming for us.

The destruction of the temple in AD didn't totally fulfill Jesus' prophecies on all of it discourse.

Rather, they're almost like a spurgeon said, they're like a rehearsal for what's to come.

That's what's going on.

So who then is this future abomination of desolation?

I don't know.

I think I can tell you maybe at least a little bit of a hint.

To do that we have to see it in 2 Thessalonians 2, 3 and 4.

And this is why I say you have to compare scripture with scripture to understand scripture, a real important principle.

We have our description of the person, and he's someone you may have heard the name of.

He's called the man of lawlessness.

The man of lawlessness, and this is a description of his character, because he openly what Defies the law.

And so here it is in 2 Thessalonians, 2, 3 and 4.

No one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first And the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

He's like all the others in some ways, but this is the abomination of desolation, the end times.

The man of lawlessness is none other than the Antichrist And, as you know, through history we've had many people who could be termed, many who are called Antichrist.

But this is the Antichrist.

This is the Antichrist because he is literally controlled by Satan.

And you think about this person's coming on the scene and he's going to be coming in the future.

He's slick, he's charismatic, he's brilliant, he's arrogant.

And the most amazing thing is that the world will pay attention to him.

They will demand he will demand it to be worshiped.

He'll crave that.

He will displace all the others who oppose him to make himself preeminent.

And this is really amazing because you think of the whole world and all of its religions.

They all come together to kind of welcome this man to his new position, because he promotes what He promotes peace in the midst of chaos, something the world at that time will be desperate for, and here will be a person who says I have the answer And they're all going to listen to him.

What a powerful delusion.

What a powerful delusion.

Well, you know the vast capability to be deceived for us.

It seems to be easier and easier for us to be deceived, and I think it couldn't be better illustrated than with the advent of the sophisticated what you know as artificial intelligence.

I was looking last night and saw last night for the first time.

Hundreds of people attended a church service near Nuremberg, germany, and it was generated almost entirely by artificial intelligence.

So what they had?

they had this screen up at the front.

They had a church service with about 300 people And the artificial intelligence service, which is called ChatGPT, was put on display.

Chatgpt, if you're unfamiliar, is a software application that sort of mimics human thought and conversation And even voice, so that it can do it.

But it's normally online And this place it was in a live setting with a screen up in front, and this ChatGPT has functioned instead of the preacher And so they're listening to a sermon that had come up 98% of it by this artificial intelligence service.

So they displayed that had 40 minutes of prayer, music, sermons and blessings.

And most notably I thought it was interesting this was during the week of a religious week And this was one of the emphasis And it was the week was entitled Now is the Time.

Now is the Time.

So I just think you know it's so easy for us to be deceived.

We are deceived just by ourselves and the enemy's devices and schemes to get us off track and not know the truth.

But it's going to be very difficult, he says.

Even the elect could be deceived And I think it could be anything like this.

So I actually.

This is why I said I wanted to give you an introduction from another preacher.

This morning I read that That was from ChatGPT.

I didn't use it for my sermon, i just want to let you know that.

But I asked my son last night.

I said would you do me a favor and would you have ChatGPT write the message from Mark 13?

He sent it back in like a minute.

It took the ChatGPT about 15 seconds to write the full message And I was amazed and shocked, depressed because it was better than mine.

Well, you know, i'm really teasing.

It really was well done and it kind of gives new meaning to how should they hear without a preacher?

you know, there's something about this technology that that is devoid of one thing the Spirit of God.

So it's important.

Here's the thing the man of lawlessness will coincide, coincide with some things that we should be looking for.

Number one you could say you can write these down and this is all in second Thessalonians.

Number one unchecked lawlessness.

What does that exactly mean?

Well, i don't know.

It says it's a mystery, the mystery of lawlessness.

In other words, why is all this lawlessness occurring?

because of the man of lawlessness getting ready to be on the scene.

It may not be now, but the precursors could be coming, could be here.

Number two the time what he calls of the rebellion, or, your version may say, the apostasy, which is a notable departure from the biblical gospel by those who we might have thought were Christians but have proved not to be at all.

In fact, they've left the faith.

People that you admired, people you listened to and heard preach, great sermons who've walked away from the faith and no longer preach the gospel.

D Edmund Hebert describes this as a worldwide anti-God movement that will be so universal as to earn for itself a special designation.

The apostasy, lawlessness, rebellion.

And then the third thing false signs and wonders.

And the caution there for us folks is that we want to see something so bad that will ignore truth for the experience.

Be careful, be careful.

Jesus prophecy moves us now from this evil human figure to the fourth thing, an unparalleled time of terror, in verses 19 through 23.

He says, for in those days there will be such tribulation as it has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and never will be.

And if the Lord did not cut short the days, no human being would be saved.

But for the sake of the elect whom he chose, he shortened the days.

The reference in verses 19 and 20 is to what The great tribulation, he says, in those days.

And so you have this this time that the disciples are talking about, to those days, which is the future into the world.

Jesus is obviously describing something that's a.

It's on an unbelievably larger and more horrific scale than what he started out with, just the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple.

Look at that word tribulation, the word there in Greek phthipsis, a word which means to crush, to press together, to him in or squeeze.

This will be a time of incredible pressure.

You live in that day.

You talk about pressure now.

You can't imagine what pressure is going to be Time of incredible pressure and difficulty, a time of judgment.

Why this is pressure?

because a judgment of God in the earth and it's a time of incredible terror And it will be so bad.

Here it says that God will cut it off.

The word is the word for amputate.

He just cuts it off because if he, if he didn't, no one will survive it.

So he'll limit that.

And as you look from other scriptures, it's this tribulation period.

He'll cut it off at three and a half years.

And then, following that tribulation, as I say, i'm giving you big picture stuff.

There's so much in the scriptures that point to this.

He's giving us the big picture he gives to the greatest thing He's coming in the clouds.

He's coming in the clouds verses 24 through 27.

He's, but in those days after that tribulation that is the great tribulation the sun will be dark and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken and then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the forewinds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

This first part of these verses, i think, is more than just mere metaphor or apocalyptic language, last day's language.

His coming is gonna be preceded by frightening cosmic events.

And you think about what he's saying here.

The lights that God created sun, moon, stars will all go dark, be complete darkness.

God's created order, which is held together by His Word, according to Colossians, it will begin to all begin to fall apart.

Can you imagine gravity ceasing to exist and planets flying through and just all kinds of chaos?

You can read more about that in Revelation 6 through 18.

Describes it there.

We can hardly.

We can hardly imagine how terrible this will be.

But I want you to circle some words there on your notes.

But but aren't you glad that this is there?

The supreme sign is the coming of the Son of Man.

This is the grand finale, grand finale of the gospel that's preached by Jesus, because it is our future hope.

So we could get really discouraged when we see all these things coming, but if our hope and our eyes are on Jesus, we know where this is going.

So don't be discouraged when you hear these things.

Listen.

When He comes, humanity will no longer lord it over one another.

All the authorities, the kings of the earth will fall and they'll bow down at the feet of the Lord Jesus.

All the authorities in the heavenlies will have to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of all.

They'll all be shaken.

Every eye will see Him.

And when He comes, guess what else?

He's gonna gather every one of us who belong to Him from the four corners of the earth and bring us all together to be with Him.

Yeah, thank you, lord Jesus.

He then goes on.

Has two other things He tells the disciples that are important for us to hear this morning.

He brings an analogy to this prophetic timeline in the lesson of the fig tree, in verses 28 through 31.

He says from the fig tree learn its lesson as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves.

You know that summer is near.

So consider this analogy here.

We know, for example, that fig trees, they lose their leaves in winter and when things warm up in late spring only in late spring, the buds pop out on the branches and leaves begin to form.

So Jesus is using the fig tree, really, as an illustration to tell His disciples to do what?

Get ready, get ready.

When the leaves come out on the fig tree He says you know that summer is near And, jesus, i am right at the door.

So the lesson that Jesus is telling applies to those disciples and it applies to us as well.

What's the lesson?

Summer is coming, summer is coming, summer is coming, summer is coming.

And we learned that lesson.

See, the Bible says at the end of days, it will be just like it was in the days of Noah People will be eating, drinking, marrying and getting married.

They'll be all caught up in their own stuff, so caught up, in fact, that they lose sight of the one they're waiting for and the one that they want to be prepared for, whose name is Jesus.

But then it will be too late when Jesus comes.

If you haven't prepared beforehand, if you don't know Christ, today, it'll be too late.

Just like it was in the days of Noah, when the Ark, the doors were closed.

They never paid any attention to the, the eight little people, noah's family, who got inside the Ark because of God's promise and they ignored it.

They were drowned by the flood and only eight people were saved.

And that's the way it'll be at the end of days.

If you don't know Jesus, you'll be out and no way in.

You'll be drowned by what's coming.

But if you know Christ, you prepare for Christ, you're ready for His coming, you prepare for it, you want to be ready.

Jesus makes a final point in this prophecy No one knows that day, verses 32 through 37.

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

And drop down to verse 37.

And what I say to you, i say to all stay awake, stay awake.

Back when I was gosh, i was still around five or six years old.

I still remember this.

I admired my older brother, who was 12 or 13 at the time, and my dad, who was in the refrigeration business.

He had a place over off of Western Avenue, where the original Trinity really was right next door and on Deedrick Avenue, and that summer he had asked.

As my older brother got out of school, he said you want to come over and work for us, work with me and learn what I do.

And so he went over that day and I think my brother had been really just tired out and tuckered out from the from this, i guess, the school year, but he decided to go.

He said, yeah, i'll work.

And so the day went on and about lunchtime they decided they calling out and they think he's back.

My brother has been back working on his job they had given him to do.

And they said where's?

where's David?

And my uncle, who worked with my dad, says I don't know, i haven't seen him.

So they began to call out David, david, where are you?

And this went on for a little bit and they were starting to look around and a little getting a little worried, until my uncle went over.

His name was Herm.

He walked over and he looked and there was a box in the corner and it had old, i guess, materials that were covering this box.

He happened to pick it up and there was my brother in the bottom of the box asleep.

Here he is, and he was just so tired he had kind of wandered over there and laid down in the box and went to sleep.

We still laugh about that, folks.

I think it's a time for us to, in analogy to get up, to not sleep, to pay attention.

This is what matters right now to be found in him, to be doing the work he's called us to do, and 1 John, 2, 28 says it like this.

And now, little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

If he were to return in the next moment, just want to ask if he were to return the next moment, in what state would he find each of us?

It's a sobering question, and so I want to leave you with these questions as we go, and I want to pray for us.

So we ask ourselves these questions, think about these each of us.

Am I abiding right now in fellowship with Christ?

Am I abiding right now in fellowship with Christ?

Second thing am I living fully obedient, in everything that I know, to Christ?

Am I living in obedience to Christ right now?

Third thing am I living for Christ?

Is Christ my passion or do I have other side issues, side passions?

Jesus is he number one in my life?

And then the last one am I waiting for Christ?

Do you look forward to his coming or do you?

do you think about the end times and Jesus coming and go.

I'm not ready for that.

And if you say no, if not, why not?

If you look at your life and your lifestyle and all the things that you answer these questions by, and you need to make changes, i need to make changes.

Let's think about doing that, because this is not.

This is real stuff, folks.

We don't want to be ashamed that his coming, because he is coming back and it's going to be wonderful.

Let me pray for us, father.

We're so thankful for your coming and just to know that, lord, we're not left.

We're not left behind, lord, we're in our relationship with you, we're going to be with you and we look forward to that day.

But, lord, we live in a world that's difficult and the things we see around us concern us greatly.

Lord, help us to put our trust in you and everything and every day.

Help us to live one day at a time, knowing that we can put our trust in you and you.

We don't have to fear, because you've got us.

You hold us in your hand, lord, and I pray for every one of us and including myself, lord, that we will be ready, prepared to meet you when you come, making the changes, the adjustments we need to make, and so, holy Spirit, even right now, i pray for every person in this room that you would speak to our hearts.

The things that need to be changed, need to be adjusted to be in right relationship with you.

In Jesus name, we ask amen.