"The Return of the King" - Mark 13

Well, by the grace of God, we are here once again to sit under the preaching of the Word of God.

If you would stand with me in respect of God's word, I will read for you the passage that uh we've come to today.

Mark chapter 13.

Mark 13 · chapter mention

As he was going out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, Teacher, behold, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings.

And Jesus said to him, Do you see these great buildings?

Not one stone will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.

As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew were questioning him privately.

Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled?

And Jesus began to say to them, See to it that no one misleads you.

Many will come in my name, saying, I am He, and mislead many.

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened.

Those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.

For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be earthquakes in various places.

There will also be famines.

These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

But be on your guard, for they will deliver you into the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them.

The gospel must first be preached to all the nations.

When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit.

Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against their parents and have them put to death.

You will be hated by all because of my name.

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

But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be, let the reader understand.

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

The one who is on the housetop must not go down or go in to get anything out of his house.

The one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat.

But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days.

Pray that it may not happen in the winter.

For those days will be a time of tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation, which God created until now, and never will.

Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would be saved.

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

Then if anyone says to you, Behold, here is the Christ, or behold, he is there, do not believe him.

For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

But take heed.

Behold, I have told you everything in advance.

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 that are in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, and then he will send forth the angels, and will gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end heaven.

Now learn the parable from the fig tree.

When its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.

Even so, you too, when you see these things happening, recognize that he is near.

Right at the door.

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

Heaven and earth will pass away.

My words will not pass away.

But of that day or hour no one knows.

Not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, the Father alone.

Take heed, keep alert, for you do not know when the appointed time will come.

It is like a man away on a journey, who upon leaving his house and putting his slaves in charge, assigning to each one his task, also commanded the doorkeeper to stay on the alert.

Therefore, be on the alert, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, whether in the evening, midnight, or when the rooster crows in the morning, in case he should come suddenly and find you asleep.

What I say to you, I say to all.

Be on the alert.

This is the word of God.

You may be seated.

Brian, would you please come?

It's a good time to stretch the legs and revere God and His Word for that chapter.

Let's go to the Lord once more in prayer as we dive in.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege of your word to us.

Ask you to bless us with it.

And that we would just draw truth from it to apply to our lives, and that your name would be glorified in and through your people.

Lead and guide us as we worship in this way.

We pray this in Christ.

Amen.

Well, I'm uh I'm excited to be back in the book of Mark today.

Um, we had a summertime break as we studied through the book of 1 Timothy, and we saw how the church is to be ordered and structured and various other things, and now we're back to finish Mark's gospel.

And today, as we come back, as you just heard read, we'll be looking into what has been universally known as the Olivet Discourse, or at least Mark's version, where Jesus from the Mount of Olives primarily begins to detail out what to expect in regards to what is to come to his disciples.

And then he describes what will take place during that return, or his return.

Now, if you can remember contextually, uh, we are in, going back to before summer, I know you have it on your minds, but uh we are in what is traditionally called Passion Week.

This is really the last week of Jesus' life before the cross.

It's Tuesday of that week as Jesus teaches this and prophesies this, and Jesus would die Friday.

That's important to remember.

Now I know I've taken a pretty large chunk of scripture here for my text, but it is intentional.

For one, this is one teaching, one narrative by Jesus.

Could we break it down?

Yeah, of course.

But really, the thing I want is I want us to go through the whole thing so that we could have our minds, our hearts, and our affections centered on two things when we think of the return of our king.

Because down through the years, especially in recent years, there have been many attempts to not only try to explain all the end times prophecies in the Bible, but to then go even further and predict the end in terms of dates or events or even with certain people in mind.

From the prediction that men like Nero or Hitler or Mussolini were the Antichrist.

Those were things that were written about a lot.

Yeah, they were antichrist, but not in the way they've been labeled by some Christians and what their point is.

There have been predictions of the end based on current events, World War I, World War II, even Y2K, for those of you old enough to remember that.

There have been predictions based on the minds and thoughts of man, from the Mayan calendar to Nostradamus, to modern-day men, or somewhat modern-day men a few years back, and I think he's still around.

Hal Lindsay wrote a book in the 80s, which of course is everything he said is wrong and false.

And those people should be disregarded as false teachers, never trusted.

He wrote a book about the world coming to an end at a certain date, and guess what happened?

Did come and pass.

And then there was even this borderline comical prophecy about the rapture.

Maybe you know what I'm talking about, if you've watched the news at all this week.

From a guy or pastor in Africa.

What can we take away from that is that either you and I totally missed the boat and we're in trouble, or he's a false prophet.

I guess he's moved it to October now.

You know, it's what you do.

I just gotta say, he better be thankful that we're not in the Old Testament times of stoning false prophets.

And I said it's almost comical that this guy would do this because there are people who get duped into this stuff.

It's sad.

And it really comes from an intense preoccupation with predictions that are end up being not only unhealthy and unwise for the Christian, but they're unbiblical, as we'll see today.

I believe we are instead to read the Bible's prophetic utterances about what's coming in the end times and come away with really two things in our minds.

First, to live each day recognizing and realizing that our Lord will return for his church, his bride.

And the second, this is going to frame everything for us today.

The second is in light of that, it's a call and a charge to faithfulness and obedience.

That's who we are.

No matter where you and I may land on the end time stuff, we can agree on at least those two things.

Christ is coming back, and we need to be ready.

When he returns, our goal and aspiration in this life, all through that, needs to be found, needs to be that we are being faithfully following, serving our King who is coming again.

As long as we can agree on that, most everything else about how he's going to return is secondary.

And so, with that on our minds, I want us to dive into this text a little bit and enjoy the words of Jesus together.

Mark's gospel account that we have been studying for months before summer was written ultimately so that we would look to who?

Christ Jesus.

And chapter 13 wasn't this, all of a sudden Mark decided to set that aside and just wanted to start predicting all kinds of stuff and try to figure out the signs at the end of the age and all of that.

No, no.

It was instead also to point us to Christ in light of his imminent return.

It is meant to point us to the glory and splendor of our King.

That's Mark 13, in a nutshell.

Not to be preoccupied with things that are minutiae in there.

And one thing we must remember as we look into this text and think about the return of our Lord is this.

While we look for his return, while we wait, let us not do this as so many have in the past.

Let us not look around and become depressed by the state of the world.

Let us not look around and just have this sense or this countenance of gloom and doom as we wait for his return.

Let us instead live optimistically.

No matter what your view of the end times are, let us look optimistically as we look forward to his return.

Yeah, the world around us is full of sin and strife, absolutely.

But our Lord has defeated all that for us.

There's pain, there's sickness, there's death, there's suffering.

But there's also joy.

There's also thankfulness.

There's peace and there's hope.

Not in the things of this world, but there is joy in knowing we serve a risen Savior that is coming back for his bride.

There is thankfulness that comes to us as we remember our salvation and his grace that has been so freely poured out on us.

And there is peace, not peace in the Middle East stuff, but peace that really matters eternally.

Peace with God.

And there's hope.

Eternal hope.

Daily hope, and a coming hope.

And so, however, we decide to interpret the text of Scripture regarding exactly how Jesus is going to come back, exactly when, what we need to know is that he is coming for his bride, and it's not going to be some accidental appearing.

It will not be a minor thing that only some get to know about.

It's going to be a worldwide announcement and visible representation of his glory, pessimism cannot characterize our view of the end times.

Jesus is coming for his bride.

He's going to come and judge the world.

And his return is one that will bring victory, final, full victory right before our eyes as this conquering ruler and king comes.

If that doesn't necessarily take your mind to joy, to hope, to optimism, I don't know what will.

We've got to stop getting bogged down in the stuff of the world when we think about the return of our king.

We're not going to know the day, we're not going to know the hour of his return, but we do know him who is coming.

What's there to be pessimistic about?

How could we ever be pessimistic about a visible public victory procession headed by the King of all kings?

Are you ready for his return?

Mark's aim to us from this text of scripture is that we would be encouraged and strengthened in wisdom and discernment to be more faithful as that day approaches.

Whether it's today or a thousand years from now.

Doesn't matter.

I want us to look at three things as we dive into this chunk of scripture.

The first is that there are and were things to come.

And we'll talk a little bit about that.

The second is there's an admonition to be prepared, as I've been talking about.

And then the third is what I titled the message, the return of the king.

So first, the things to come.

I'm kind of characterize that as verses 1 to 23.

The Olivet discourse given here by Jesus actually has its beginnings in the city of Jerusalem.

If you notice the first verse there, it says that as they were on their way out of the temple, when Jesus' disciples began to speak of these great buildings that Herod had built.

One of them was the actual temple.

No, not the first one.

The first one that's built by Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.

Second was a rebuild by Ezra and Nehemiah and rebuilt again kind of with great stones from Herod.

And these stones were something for them to marvel at in that day.

They were proud of their city and its structures and their architecture.

They were proud of these buildings.

It would be kind of like us as patriots heading over to Washington, D.C.

and not only looking upon the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument with awe, but being proud of them as Americans, which can be a good thing.

But Jesus, never wanting to let a teaching opportunity go by, he begins to speak of the fraileness of these creations of man, no matter how big the stones are, in light of the greatness of his power.

And so they head back to the Mount of Olives.

Peter, James, and John and Andrew begin to question him privately about what he just said, about the destruction of these buildings.

I mean, that hit him pretty hard.

Their beloved holy city.

So Jesus begins to tell them of the fact that these temples, these stones, are not eternal.

They're not beyond destruction.

Now here's what's interesting.

We know this to be absolutely true because in AD 70, just short, just shy of 40 years after Jesus said this, the Roman general Titus would show up and do exactly that.

Destroy the temple.

Sack Jerusalem, basically destroying it as well.

But we also know that Jesus is speaking in an eternal sense of things as he comes to make all things new.

Now, again, there are a lot of views on whether this is just a prophecy of the destruction of the temple in AD 70.

Try to follow along with me here.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with that event that is historical, or that it has to do with both the destruction of the temple in AD 70 and with what's to come in the age, our end of the age.

And there are, of course, our views in between.

Why?

Because it hasn't happened yet.

All of it.

Jesus isn't come for his bride yet.

Some things have happened, though.

Just so you're aware, in AD 70, when General Titus came and destroyed the temple, it was an absolutely devastating event for the Jewish people.

There was mass slaughter, genocide, horrible atrocities committed, unspeakable acts of wicked behavior.

Probably somewhere over a million Jews died.

Now think about that in context.

Therefore, we can confidently assert that in this passage, Jesus is no doubt speaking or prophesying of the event that's soon to come in AD 70 regarding the temple being destroyed.

It makes sense.

And so as we begin to wrestle with the rest of what is listed out in this passage about how horrible it'll be when this happens, I just want us to focus and remember on something really important.

And that is this that there is an eternal home for the people of God.

No matter what comes, no matter what has happened.

It is good.

It is helpful for us to try to pin down where we stand on what theologians call eschatology.

That's just what means the study of the end times.

But I've already stated that's not my goal here today.

We can do that another time.

Whatever view you have regarding this passage, the point remains strong and vivid.

There are birth pangs, but it's not the end yet.

Not the end yet.

Jesus saying, these things listed out are gonna happen, but it's not the end.

But they will come.

There are a lot of applications for us still from this passage in the year 2025, and that's what our focus should be on.

And that is the call to faithfulness in our lives in light of Jesus' warnings on what's to come.

So Jesus begins to fill his disciples in on what's coming.

He is telling them to not let anyone mislead them.

What's the point of him telling them about what's to come so they won't be misled?

He gives them that warning.

Remember, it's not about so we can figure all the bits and pieces.

Jesus says, I'm telling you this so you're not misled.

And I'm thankful that he did that because this last week we could have been misled pretty easily, right?

But Jesus says, No.

That's not the end.

No way.

Nobody knows.

It's not so that they can have all the answers, have prophecy conferences, but so that they are not deceived.

That's so important all over Scripture.

To not be deceived by the evil.

So, what is it that could lead them astray?

What is it that could deceive them?

Verses 5 through 23 give us, I would say, six things that the disciples need to know, and we need to know as well, so that we're not deceived.

What are these things?

Let's look at them one at a time.

First in verse six.

Look at verse six with me.

Many will come in my name, saying I am he and will mislead many.

Similar statement in verses 21 to 22.

Jesus saying, Do not look to false Christs.

They will be obvious.

This has been true from actually the time before Christ, all the way down to us today.

One of the reasons that the religious leaders of Jesus' day were so suspicious of Jesus' claims about who he is and what he came for was because he's not the first guy to come along and claim messiahship.

He's not.

They were used to it.

Unfortunately, though, as we know, reading the Bible, they didn't recognize the real deal when it came through either.

But since the time of Christ, many, many, many have come claiming to be Him or a new manifestation of Him.

And all kinds of false religions, all kinds of cults have sprung up from these false Christs.

You name them: Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, David Quaresh.

Anybody remember that name down in Waco?

On and on and on the list goes as a fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy here.

Even though the internet and the television may tell us that so-and-so is him, we must not believe it.

We must not be deceived by so-called convincing priests.

If it doesn't line up with Scripture, no matter how convincing it is, it's false.

It's false.

So, as we'll talk about more in a moment, there will be absolutely no mistaking the true return of the King of Kings.

Second thing that we find in this passage about is about wars and rumors of wars that will come about before Jesus returns.

Man, was Jesus right in that prediction, that prophecy.

Not only has there been many wars all over the earth since the time of Christ, but we've even sears involving most of the world.

We call them world wars.

War between the Jews and the Romans started in AD 66.

And since then, there have been wars and rumors of wars continually all over the earth.

From the Middle East to the African nations to most of the European countries, to America, to Asian countries.

War is almost always going on.

I've heard a statistic, something like about 311 years in the history of the world has there not been war.

I don't know if that's 100% accurate, but it sounds right.

So what is Jesus' admonition to his disciples and us in regard to this?

Don't be afraid.

Live faithfully.

It's not the end.

Christ has told us, hey, they're going to come.

Come and go, actually.

Let us not be dismayed by these events.

Let us just turn to Christ, pray for his return instead, and thank him that true peace will come to us in the eternal kingdom, not here.

He's wanting us to remember that when these wars and rumors of wars come, it's not the end.

That was true for them personally right before the destruction of the temple in AD 70, and it's still true for us today.

A quick note on that, by the way.

Notice that Jesus didn't say, there will be rumors of wars and wars, and then within 48 hours, I will come.

Or even 48 years, I will come.

He doesn't say that.

He just simply says, those things will precede my return.

Are you ready?

Third thing we need to understand is that natural disasters are going to be a part of the natural part of the earth since it's a fallen world.

Earthquakes have come and gone, and yet Christ hasn't returned.

Remember that huge earthquake in Haiti years and years ago?

Tsunami in Indonesia that wiped out, I don't even know, a couple hundred thousand people, I think.

Hurricane Katrina.

They simply tell us that Christ is right.

So the world is fallen.

But they do not mean that the end of the world is here of some of our only thought.

These things have been going on since the quake of the earth on Resurrection Sunday, and they will continue until Christ returns.

He says that they are just birth pangs in this last season of the earth.

And no one, I repeat that, nobody knows how long they will continue for.

I ask you again, are you ready?

Fourth thing we see Jesus give us in regards to the end of the age is that we will be persecuted as Christians.

Let me repeat that.

It's a guarantee.

We will suffer for the sake of Christ as his people, and I'm not just talking about physical health.

I mean that we will suffer for the name of Christ and His gospel.

If we are followers, lovers of Jesus, then we should expect suffering for the sake of the gospel and righteousness.

Not the other way around.

I mean, I get it, we have such a hard time here in America with all of our wonderful freedoms really absorbing this.

But again, I remind us this is a very unique time in the history of the church and in the current state of the church globally, by and large.

I mean, I praise God for our freedoms, but we cannot presume to think that we're immune.

If we do, we will fail when those persecutions come.

Jesus is telling them to be ready, to know that suffering for his name will occur so that they can be ready, so that they're not taken off guard.

He says that his disciples will be delivered up to the courts for their faith in him.

Jesus says you will be flogged in the synagogues.

He says you'll be taken before governors and for kings for his namesake.

This is true of all the apostles, especially when we look at the lives of Peter and Paul.

But it is still true to this day.

I mean, think about the Coptic Christians in Egypt.

To the Christian church growing in Iran, surprisingly.

To me, at least, not surprising to the Lord.

To the wonderful church growth exploding in China right now, or Africa.

There is suffering all around for the sake of Christ.

There are killings, floggings, banishings all over the world for the name of Christ.

But those saints have read this passage.

They've read this of the Savior enduring the same things, and they're strengthened by it.

Are we?

Or do we just complain?

It's not a surprise to God that those things happen.

Jesus is telling us 2,000 years ago.

And it's not a surprise.

And if it's not a surprise to him, then it really shouldn't be to us either, right?

And therefore we should expect it to be joyful in the midst of it, as James says in chapter 1 of his book.

Not that we ask for persecution, never desire it, but when it comes, we can know with a surety that it is within the sovereignty of God, it is for his purposes, our good, and his glory.

Are you ready for it?

No matter what persecutions come our way, we've got to realize, though, one thing is for sure, and that is the fifth thing that Jesus tells us must happen.

The gospel must be preached all over the world, to all nations.

Nothing has or will ever prevent this from happening.

Not the sinfulness of man, not the rule of kings, not the laws of the land, not the very gates of hell.

The message of Christ will go out, and it will go out by Christ's people as it went out from Jerusalem by the apostles.

We are his chosen instruments to proclaim his message.

God will always raise up his people for the work of the ongoing evangelization of the lost, of the nations, and that means that a passage like this should tell us we just have our work cut out for us.

Again, I want us to note that Jesus didn't say, once the gospel hits the soil of that one last nation, in that moment I return.

He doesn't say that.

He just simply says it's going to precede my return.

No date, no timeline, no named country.

They could change names in the meantime anyway.

Just a promise.

The gospel will go out by the mouths of his people to every nation preceding his return.

Praise be to God for his grace.

Jesus also tells us in the sixth thing that we see here today is that tribulations will come, very similar to what I just spoke about.

Trials will face us in this life.

There will be those who will try to deceive the elect, even if possible, with false teachings.

There will be pain and suffering for God's people.

There will be blood shed.

But we know that the elect of God, those chosen of God, as the passage read, will endure to the end and be saved.

His people will persevere.

You see, verse 13 says that those who endure to the end will be saved.

How do we endure to the end?

By the strength of our Savior.

We will endure because the Spirit isn't dwelt within us.

Just like those who were burned in Nero's garden of that day as human torches.

Just like those who are burned at the stake at the hands of false teachers and governing leaders during the time of the Reformation.

Just like those being beheaded in the Middle East or maybe North Korea right now.

We will endure if we are indwelt with the Spirit, by the power of the Spirit.

I love what Jesus says in Revelations 2 and 3.

We hear our Lord speak very candidly to those seven churches.

And in each admonition to the church, each of the churches there, he concludes with a similar statement.

He says, to him who overcomes, to him who overcomes, to him who overcomes.

And then he says, I will give.

And each gift has to do with eternal life.

We're called to persevere in his strength in our faithful obedience for his glory until he returns.

He says he'll give us what to say.

He will give us the joy that will come, even in the midst of a tragic earthquake, a tsunami, persecution.

There's a guarantee of things that have already come and are still coming.

So where does that leave us today?

Each day that we live our lives, what do we do?

Okay, we can know that these things have to happen, and then he's coming, okay.

Now what?

That's our second point.

We need to be prepared.

We're to follow the commands of our Lord to be prepared for his return.

We're to live faithful, obedient lives.

Do you ever think of your daily life like that?

Each day you wake, maybe you think excitedly, this could be it.

It could be today.

I must be ready for my king.

I must live for him.

Not with your hair done right and your clean clothes on straight.

Not having all your ducks in a row financially or in your retirement or 401k, but in your faithfulness, in your faithful obedience.

Are you ready?

Verses 28 to 37 tell us that we are to be on alert and prepared for his return.

He tells us to learn from the fig tree that to know that he is coming and he'll be coming soon.

Is that in my lifetime or your lifetime?

I have no idea.

Not a clue.

But it doesn't matter.

My job is to be faithful.

Our job is to be prepared as if he were to come in this very instant.

Again, be wary of anybody who knows who says that they know when he's coming.

For this passage tells us that they are false prophets.

No one knows when the king will come.

Not man, not angels, and in this text, before his ascension, not even the Son of Man knew, but the Father alone.

Who are we?

Like I said today, it could be after the service, or it could be 2,000 more years.

Either way, he is coming, praise the Lord.

Are we ready to go with him?

So I'm gonna give you some real easy practical things to know if you're prepared.

How do we get prepared for his return?

Now, this isn't exhaustive, these are just some things.

Very simply, we will live out our calling in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We will live faithful lives of followers of the Lord.

And I want to give you some practical ways that you can be eschatologically sure.

There's a big word to take home.

Eschatologically end time study, sure and ready.

Okay?

It's nothing groundbreaking.

It's nothing new.

Better not be new.

First, we are to live lives that are full of mercy.

Full of mercy.

We forgive as the Lord forgives.

We need to be a people that forgives wrongs, shows mercy.

Remember Jesus' words?

If you do not forgive others, he's not going to forgive you.

We do not want to be found in that spot in life when he returns.

We need to be full of mercy, compassion.

Next, I would say we need to live lives that are courageous.

Courageous.

If we want to be courageous, we look to the one who embodied being courageous.

From the clearing of the temple to the continual rebuke of the religious leaders of his day.

Jesus was courageous, and we need to be the same, whether that's in our own lives, as we stand for the truth in our neighborhood or in our workplace, we are to courageously stand for Christ, never wavering, never backing down.

It is also the courage to be able to tell others of the message of the gospel itself.

That takes courage.

It takes somebody with a heart full of mercy, a steel spine of courage to tell them what someone told you when they proclaimed the gospel to you.

Because any jellyfished, prickly spined person can either complain away their conversations or shrink back in fear when the word of God is spoken of.

It takes the brave and courageous warrior to lovingly, winsomely, and unhesitatingly proclaim what their hearers need to believe, even if they believe it to be foolish and offensive.

It takes the bold-hearted courage of somebody who loves enough to tell somebody the truth.

That's being prepared for his return.

To be ready also means that we are to live lives full of grace.

We will do this in one way as we remember our testimonies, maybe.

As we remember that Jesus called us from our totally depraved state and into his loving arms.

When we tell people that we have been shown immense grace and that we then come alongside of them in love and encouragement, and we challenge them in the faith.

Those are acts of pure grace.

Similar to this, we're to be living lives that are loving.

As we live in light of his return.

We're to love God just as his son did, Jesus.

We will show him our love as we spend time with him, as we're obedient to him, and as we love others.

That's 1 John in Sunday school.

The love that Jesus showed to his heavenly Father is a model for us in our love for him as our Lord and Savior, and that must necessarily spill over to others.

As we wait for his return to be prepared, we are called to endure suffering.

As we talked about before.

And we do this by looking to Jesus, the one who endured so much suffering on our behalf on the cross.

What can we endure that compares to that?

Contrast that with our own ability to endure suffering on this earth and ask ourselves, ask yourself, am I waiting for his return?

And as I'm waiting, how am I doing?

Am I enduring what suffering comes my way with love, with grace, with mercy on my lips?

In the midst of an incredible difficulty?

If my Lord suffered so much, who am I to think that it is beyond me to endure anything for his namesake?

Are you ready?

We wait for him.

And we're prepared to live out our obedience to his word.

That's another piece.

We look to Jesus' unfailing obedience to his Father, and that he was obedient even unto death, death on a cross.

That gives us the strength we need to be obedient in our lives as we wait for his return.

Every word of the Lord will endure forever.

His word is eternal, and it is eternally significant.

If we believe that, then we should spend our lives seeking to apply it and live it out.

We are to be in continual prayer as we await his return.

We're to pray like Jesus.

We're to pray with fervency, blood, sweat, and tears, and joy.

We're to pray within the will of God.

We are to pray for our ability to endure and for those around us to endure and thrive as we collectively wait for his return as a church.

Right worship is also preparatory.

When we worship Christ according to the word, we are being prepared for his return.

So many things could be said.

But it's not some groundbreaking new creation.

It's faithless.

In summary, we're to fix our eyes on Jesus and be prepared as we wait.

And if you want to be prepared for his return, don't get hung up on what this could mean or what that could mean or what that number could mean.

Just get hung up on the fact that you're going to see Christ.

Be prepared by living out your faith in the gospel.

Don't get all caught up in the when and what day and what all the minor details will be.

Instead, as a friend of mine once said, live for this day with your eyes on that day.

It's good to study the word, to look deeply into the text, to give us some info about his return, but my encouragement to you would to never let that control your study of Christ nor of what's coming.

Because the hero and the author of the end times, that's who's coming, that's who it's all about.

He is to be our focus.

He's coming back, he will return, and we are to prepare for that king.

That's our focus, that's our aim.

Even the book of Revelation itself testifies to the importance of Jesus and not just the mere signs.

The very first words of the book of Revelation are this: the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So what do you think follows?

It gives us what it's about right off the bat.

It's all about him.

It's always been about him.

And if our study, the end times, forces our gaze upon the Savior, then we have an eschatology that is biblical.

Which, of course, leads us to the third point: the return of the king.

What a blessing it is to know that he's coming, huh?

As a guarantee.

And because he's coming, we don't just get hung up on those signs.

No, we get hung up on him.

And as we read this passage, we should always be thinking that he could come back in our own day, not because of my prophecy, but because of our focus on him and his imminent return as he promised.

So many people I hear speak so often of the rapture and what it's going to look like and what's going to happen, and my car is going to creen off a cliff and all these things.

As I already said, there was a man last week who said that it was coming on the 23rd and 24th, by the way, as if Jesus needed two days to accomplish that task.

Whew! That's a big one.

Moved now to October, so, you know.

My fear about our focus on things like that is that it would seem as though people are more excited about the rapture than they are about seeing Jesus.

Jesus Christ is coming for his bride.

Revelation 19 says this is going to be a time of judgment.

He will come to tread out the fierce wine press of the wrath of the Father as he rescues his bride.

The glory of Jesus will be in full effect.

The trumpet will blast, every eye, every tongue will confess.

Are you ready for this glorious day?

Are you ready for your king?

That this coming will be a universe-changing event.

That's the God we serve.

That the very foundations of all that we can see with the human eye or with the largest telescope will be rocked back and forth by the glory of Jesus Christ as he returns.

Who in that moment will say, I don't believe he's real?

The return of Christ will be visible, personal, instantaneous, and universal.

Nobody on earth will miss it.

All eyes will be on him and all knees will be bowed to him.

All will see him and all will bow.

Every single human will have grass stains either on their knees or on their foreheads.

This coming will be drastically different than his first coming.

When he came to Bethlehem as a babe in a humble way.

This time he's coming as the conquering king, and that should bring us joy.

He is coming with splendor and royalty, even though his people have been persecuted and have endured a lot of suffering.

This coming will be a sweet relief and a glorious day of union with their Savior.

On that day we will see the Son of Man, it says, coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and he will gather us all, the elect from all the corners of the earth.

Every corner he will gather those whom he has chosen, redeemed and ransomed from before the foundations of the world, and he will save us from the absolute eternal destruction fully and finally.

That faithful brother, think of it this way, that faithful brother in the Alaskan Peninsula, that godly woman from the jail cell in China, that Iranian pastor, that kid in Israel who professes Christ must have the Of his parents, the Russian shopkeeper, the American construction worker will all be gathered into the embrace of Christ, the King of Kings.

He is coming in glorious majesty.

Are you ready?

First time he came to suffer to be that propitiation or the atonement for our sin, he came and was despised.

He was rejected, hung on a cross without his own sin, but with ours instead.

But at this second coming, he will be coming as a king to reign.

Every knee on the earth, no matter their beliefs, will stand where or will fall where they stand.

The nations and rulers of this earth will fall to his majesty in an instant so that he can rule them in righteousness.

If the Lord decides to come in our day, Donald Trump will be bowing the knee.

That little king in England, his knees will be scuffed.

Prime Minister, King, President, Emperor, Dictator, University Professor, U.S.

governor, Supreme Court Justice, New York mayor, the Pope, and every person from every continent will fall down before this judge.

He is coming to judge, and he is a good judge.

Are you ready?

Never take your eyes off of him.

The first thing he's going to do as he comes is to gather his people.

How blessed are we?

If he comes in our time, we get to watch the atheist next to us bow and confess that Jesus is really, truly, eternally real, and we will be whisked away at his side.

The righteous judge of men will come and it will be a sight to behold.

I mean, you and I can take the time to picture in our minds for a hundred years, and we will never grasp the imagery nor the weight of the moment that is still yet to come.

But we can know for certain if we've placed our faith and our trust in him, we will be gathered to the Lord on that day if he so chooses to come in our lifetime.

So both this day and on that day, let us beg God that we would behold the glory of his Son, Jesus Christ, as we wait for his imminent return.

Beloved of God, your king is coming to you.

Take heart, be on alert, as verse 36 says.

Live for him, be prepared.

It's going to be the grandest spectacle that will ever happen on the earth as we know it.

It will be worldwide and it will be awesome.

I don't know of a better word.

Titus chapter 2 tells us to be looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

As the mountains are rolling up, as the islands are disappearing, the earth is quaking, the voice and the trumpet of the angel are both piercing eardrums and hearts.

And as the stench of angry fear is reeking from all corners of the earth, we shall be at peace.

For the first time, true peace will be ours as his people.

Seeing Jesus necessitates peace, joy, honor, worship, reverence.

Faith is no longer going to be needed.

Hope will come to fruition.

The sight of the Savior will change us in an instant.

And we will be with him in his presence forever.

And so we say today, even so, come Lord Jesus.

Come for your people.

Oh King of all.

Return for your bride.

We long for our king.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for salvation.

We thank you for the privilege of knowing Christ our Lord.

We thank you for the gift of knowing that we are not an abandoned bride, but that we serve the perfect husband who will return.

Who cares for us now from afar or even in our hearts.

And one day physically we'll be united with our bridegroom, the King of all kings.

We thank you for that hope and that promise.

May that continue to be ever more visible and real to us as we move to a time of communion.

We pray this in Christ.

Amen.