He Is Good | The Destruction of the Temple | Mark 13 | Coleton Segars

The teaching text for today comes from Mark 13, verses 1 through 37.

Mark 13 · chapter mention

This is a long passage.

Hang in there.

Alright, Mark writes.

As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, Look, teacher, what massive stones, what magnificent buildings.

Do you see all these great buildings?

replied Jesus.

Not one stone will be left on another.

Every one will be thrown down.

And as Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, Tell us, when are these things going to happen?

And what will be the sign that they are about to be fulfilled?

And Jesus said to them, Watch out that no one deceives you.

Many will come in my name, claiming I am He, and will deceive many.

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

Such things must happen.

But the end is still to come.

Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be earthquakes in various places and famines.

These are the beginning of birth pains.

And you must be on your guard.

You will be handed over to the local councils, flogged in the synagogues, and on account of me, you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them.

And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.

Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry before him what you what to say.

Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking but the Holy Spirit.

Brother will betray brother to death and father his child.

Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.

Everyone will hate you because of me.

But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

When you see the abomination that causes desolation, standing where it does not belong, let the reader understand.

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

Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out.

Let no one in the field go back and get their cloak.

How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers.

Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning when God created the world until now, and never to be equaled again.

If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive.

But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.

At that time, if anyone says to you, Look, here is the Messiah, look, there he is, do not believe it.

For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

And so be on your guard.

I have told you everything ahead of time.

But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

At that time, people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory, and he will send his messengers and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Now, learn this lesson from the fig tree.

As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that the summer is near.

Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near right at the door.

Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

But about the day and the hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father.

So be on guard, be alert, you do not know when that time will come.

It's like a man going away.

He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back, whether in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.

If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.

What I say to you, I say to everyone, watch.

This is the word of the Lord.

In the year 1534, leaders of the Anabaptist movement in Munster, Germany predicted that Munster, Germany was the new Jerusalem prophesied at the end times.

And so in Munster, they declared this city God's end time kingdom.

They abolished private property, they enforced polygamy.

Apparently, end times creates that.

They executed their dissenters, and the leader crowned himself the king of Zion.

In the late 18th century, in the early 19th century, a Russian sect called Skopsey predicted that sexual desire was tied to the Antichrist and end times corruption.

So men castrated themselves, Yites.

Women sometimes mutilated breasts.

They believed this restored us to a pre-fall purity to prepare for Christ's second coming and his return.

In 1997, Heaven's Gate predicted a spacecraft following the Hale Bob comet would usher them into the next stage of existence.

Using Christian language and UFO theology, 39 people committed suicide together believing they needed to be dead in order to experience it.

And then in 1994 and in 2011, Harold Camping used numerology, Bible codes, and genealogies to calculate dates and predicted that 1994 was the year of the rapture, just a soft prediction.

Turns out he wasn't right.

Then they adjusted it, as you do, to May 21st, 2011 for the rapture.

Again, no dice.

And then October 21st, 2011, for the final destruction.

And in this prediction, people sold homes, businesses, retirement savings, people stopped medical treatment believing they wouldn't need it.

Children were pulled out of school, and people camped on rooftops and hills expecting physical removal from the earth.

My simple point is when it comes to texts like these, Christians get weird.

And it's not good.

We do weird stuff and we need to stop.

Like stop doing the weird stuff.

This is the oddest.

Like there's tons more.

Like passages like these, and then end times, eschatology, things like that, people just get really odd.

And what's wild is the disciples who heard Jesus say these words literally, they didn't get weird.

They didn't turn, they didn't start picketing and holding up signs and saying, Repent, or the end, the end is near.

Like they didn't do any of those things.

They weren't on the rooftops in white robes going, Here we go, it's gonna happen now.

Like, but like that didn't happen for them.

And yet, for some reason, when it comes to passages like the one we just read, Christians and people, but specifically Christians, we can get a little weird about these passages.

And so to me, as as we were gonna teach on this, I was like, it is incredibly important for everyone in the room and anybody listening online, it is incredibly important that we understand what this passage is teaching and what it's teaching specifically.

And so my goal today in teaching a full chapter is I want to be incredibly clear on what Jesus is saying here.

I want you to walk away with incredible clarity.

I know exactly what it's saying, so that you don't walk out of here, go to the neck, you know, the Walgreens, snag you a picket sign, and just start doing a thing.

I don't want that.

I want you to really understand what's happening here, and then I'm gonna give you some practical application about what this means for us.

And so the majority of this message will simply be explaining piece by piece what Jesus is actually saying here.

Okay?

Everybody feel good?

You ready for that?

Okay, we're not gonna be weird about the end time stuff.

If you have been, just stop that.

It'll be fine.

All right.

So here's what Jesus is doing, piece by piece.

First, Jesus is prophesying about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, not the end of the entire world.

This whole chapter is only about the end of the temple in Jerusalem and its destruction, not the end of the entire world.

Now, the temple itself was supposed to lead people to God, and it wasn't doing that.

If you remember a couple chapters ago, Jesus comes into Jerusalem, king of Jerusalem.

He's coming in as a king.

He comes into the temple, which is he is the God of the temple, and he cleanses the temple the way that the Messiah is supposed to do.

And what the people do is they don't receive it, they actually reject him.

And so you have this face in this temple, the God of the temple is rejected from the temple by the people.

And so the temple no longer is functioning the way it's supposed to function, because it's it's rejected the God of the temple.

And so Jesus says, it's not fulfilling its purpose anymore, therefore it's going to come to an end.

Jesus is going to replace the temple itself, and he will be the central arc of the glory of God.

He will be the way that people encounter him.

That's why he says, No one comes to the Father except through me.

Used to be the temple, and now Jesus is replacing that.

So he's prophesying the destruction of the temple.

Next, the disciples ask, When is this going to happen?

And he gives the answer in two parts.

And so when will this happen?

Part one is verse four through thirteen.

And basically what he says, I'm not going to read it all again because I just read it all.

Um, but verses four through thirteen, he gives part one of when this will happen.

And what he says is, it will not happen immediately.

It's not going to happen right at the first.

And so he says, here's a handful of things that will happen beforehand.

You'll be persecuted because of me.

And then when you get to the book of Acts, you actually see that begin to happen, and it's still happening.

Persecution begins and continues.

And then it says the gospel must first be preached to all nations.

And all nations in this point is not our nation, all nations at this point represent what's representative of Rome.

And so Rome is all nations.

Take the gospel to all nations.

And so Rome is the all nations there.

And we see that happening when the Apostle Paul goes to Rome in AD 60, AD 61, and brings the gospel there, and the gospel has gone to all the nations there.

And so what he's saying is like, this destruction is not going to take place immediately.

Some things have to happen first.

And so he says, Be patient and stand firm.

And so that's part one.

And then he moves on to a sign, because they said, Give us a sign, give us something to let us know when this is going to happen.

And so he moves on from there, and he moves to when this will happen, part two, which is verses 14 through 23.

And he talks about something called the abomination that causes desolation.

It's a sign, that's a sign.

When you see that, that's something that you can see to know that these things are beginning.

And T.

Wright, who I spend a ton of time in his commentary, so he's going to be quoted a lot, just for reference, says this about the abomination.

He says, the sign, this sign that it's not time to be patient anymore, but it's time to take to the hills, is the desolating abomination, an appalling object or person whose presence signifies imminent destruction.

The text behind this is Daniel 11:31 and 12.11, which speaks of pagan armies invading Jerusalem, stopping the regular sacrifices in the temple, and setting up instead a desolating abomination.

Daniel 11:31

And then in verse 14, verse 14, Mark adds an aside and he says, Hey, reader, reader of this, of my gospel, make sure you understand something.

Let the reader understand.

And the reason he does that is because Mark writes his gospel around the year AD 66.

And AD 66 was the exact same year of the Jewish revolt against Rome.

It began that revolt, that revolution that happened.

And so what he's saying is like this thing that I'm writing about right now, the destruction hasn't come yet, but these things are happening in our midst right now.

Think like you need to understand.

I'm writing about this abomination, desolation thing.

Let the reader understand, I am writing about things that are happening right now.

And so William Lane in his commentary says this about what was happening in AD 66 when Mark is writing this thing.

He says, Jewish forces in AD 66 won, so the Jews won an impressive victory over Cestius Gallus in November of 66.

And so they won this thing that was happening.

And so it seems like it's a war, it's not a rumor of a war, it's an actual war.

Some things are happening.

And it seems like this is going to be good for the Jewish people.

But during this period, the Jews, the zealots who won, moved into and occupied the temple.

The Jewish people moved in and occupied the temple, but it wasn't the priests.

It wasn't the people that were actually supposed to be in there.

And what they did is they allowed persons who had committed crimes to roam freely in the Holy of Holies.

And so they allowed the Holy of Holies was just for the high priest and only every now and then, not supposed to get going all the time.

And now these people have allowed people to move in and stand where they're not supposed to stand.

And so they're brought into the Holy of Holies and they're criminals.

They perpetrated murder, and it says that they killed, they killed so many Jewish people, they began stacking them onto the altar.

And so they were killing Jews.

They weren't even killing Romans at this point.

Jewish people, Jewish zealots, were killing Jewish people and stacking them on the altar in the temple.

And so that's happened.

These acts of sacrilege were climaxed in the winter of 67 and 68 by the farcical investiture of the clown Fani as high priest.

They basically just went out, found somebody to be a priest, named him high priest, even though he wasn't from the right tribe, he didn't have the right lineage or anything.

It's like whatever, it doesn't matter.

Let's get that guy and make him high priest.

And they brought him in and made him high priest.

The Jewish Christians who had met in the porches of the temple from the earliest days, they would have found this spectacle no less offensive.

It seems probable that they recognized in Fani the appalling sacrilege, usurping the position which is not his, standing in the place that he's not supposed to be, therefore consigning the temple to destruction.

And in response to Jesus' warning, based on this, 36 years, 37 years, 38 years later, in responding to Jesus' warning, they fled the city.

And so all of that is happening in 866.

And so Mark is saying, let the reader understand these things are taking place among you.

And so understand that these things are happening, not something future cosmic thing down the road.

Like this is actively taking place in your time.

During this time, there were a lot of people that stood up and said, I am he, I am he, I'm the Messiah.

I think we have a slide of like all the different people during this time that were self-proclaimed Messiahs.

And so Josephus, who was a non-Christian Jewish historian, we have all of this from his book, Antiquities of the Jews and then the Wars.

And so he says, like, this actually, everything that Jesus prophesied happened.

All these people started saying, like, hey, destruction's not coming.

I got this.

I promise you signs and wonders.

We're going to take them out, we're going to do this, and all this stuff.

And Josephus, who doesn't even, not even a Jesus follower, is like, look, it actually did happen.

All these people stood up and said, I am he, I am he.

And some people decided to stay in the city, believing, well, this messianic figure is going to save us.

But then, and she writes this again, he says, but then in AD 70, as Roman Emperor Vespasian made his way to Rome to receive the crown, his adopted son Titus entered Jerusalem, burnt the temple, and destroyed the city.

And it says they crucified so many Jews that they ran out of trees to construct crosses.

During this time, people starved.

They ate their own babies to stay alive.

They fought each other both for scraps of dirty food and for small-scale political gains in the factional fighting.

More Jews were killed by other Jews than by the invading Romans.

And so in Jerusalem, it is still true to this day that those days will be days without equal distress.

Like there's never been a distress greater than what happened in that particular space.

Nothing will ever rival that.

It will never be equaled again, not only in the past, but also in the future.

And so all of those things, when will this happen?

It will happen when you see this person standing when they're not supposed to be.

And the Christians who saw it actually escaped the city and fled and fleed from the destruction and missed out on what the city did.

During those times, it was very, very wise, or at least considered wise, to go, destruction's coming, run behind the walls of the city.

And a lot of people did that, but the people who believed Jesus' words didn't run behind the walls of the city.

They fled to the hills.

And then when Jerusalem was sacked and the temple was destroyed and the whole thing was ravaged.

The people who listened to Jesus' words actually escaped destruction, and those who didn't didn't.

And so that's when it's going to happen.

And that's what it actually happens that way.

Now, from there, so we had when it's like it's going to take a second, and it's like when it's like you're going to see this sign, and then you actually see that sign, not in Mark's gospel, but that actually took place.

And then Jesus moves on in his talk, in his teaching, about the outcome of this destruction.

What will be the outcome of this destruction?

And there are three, and he gives three outcomes of what this destruction will do.

The first is that this destruction will be the end of the Jewish world, not the entire world.

This destruction will be the end of their world.

And that's what he says in verses 24 through 25.

The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

This passage is not a reference to the end of the world.

This passage is a reference to Isaiah 13, 10 and Isaiah 34.4.

That they don't talk about the end of the world.

They talk about the end of Babylon and the end of Edom, two nations.

So this is language that you use when a nation is about to be crushed completely, and their way of life is going to be usurped or taken away by something else.

And it's just like their whole way of life is going to go away.

It's going to be the end not of the world, but it's going to be the end of their world.

And so the outcome and the destruction of the destruction of the temple will be the end of their world.

Inti Wright, along with Mark Strauss, again, they say this it is difficult, difficult to consign the admonitions of these verses to the end time.

No one will be able to flee from the judgment of God in that day.

But the warnings do make good sense in the context of an approaching Roman army before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

This is not a prediction of the end of the world, though many in Jerusalem must have wished that it was.

No, but it was the end of their world, the close of the their way of life that had failed to obey God's call to be the light of the world.

And so Jesus in this space is not speaking about the end of the world, but the end of their way of life.

For 2,000 years, you have to imagine, like, they have functioned one way.

Their entire lives have been built around this temple.

And so when the temple is destroyed, their whole way of life, the whole centerpiece of their way of life, is removed.

And it's like, what do we do now?

And you actually see that happen.

Once the temple was destroyed, the Pharisees and the Sadducees just obliterate into history.

You don't see them anymore.

The religious way of life that revolved around the temple ended, all the sacrifice, they're not sacrificing animals for the forgiveness of sin anymore.

The temple festivals and pilgrimages that they had taken, that their families had done for generation after generation after generation.

Like, what do we do we still take those?

Like, why?

There's no temple to go to.

No, we're not going to do that anymore.

And then they also had to reinterpret their own scriptures, they hadn't reinterpret the Torah.

They're going, this is all about like sacrificial systems and things.

Like, what do we do?

It's like that way of life is gone now.

We can't live in that way anymore.

So they had to refigure out like, how do we get our sins forgiven?

How do we get right with God?

How is God going to bless us?

How do we worship Him if we don't have a temple?

We've had this thing for so long.

We don't know what to do.

And so that actually happened for them.

Their entire way of life was over.

And so Jesus uses language here in this text to talk about it's not the whole world coming to an end, but it is their world coming to an end.

The whole thing that is central to their existence is now gone and their way of life is completely different.

I was trying to think of a way, there's very few things in our lives that are as central as that, that if it if it just removed itself, like it would make us do everything completely different, and that world would be over.

But I think we experience it on a small scale if our power goes out for a couple of days.

Like when your power goes out for a couple of days, like you have to figure out a new way to live.

Like, how do I heat stuff?

How do I get hot water?

How do I get coffee in the morning?

How do I turn on lights?

How do I read?

How do I watch anything?

How do I charge my stuff?

Like, you know, like if for a couple of days, you even start to go and like turn on the microwave, and you're like, oh no, that's that's not gonna work.

And then you have to find a new way to do those things, and we can find ways around it and things like that.

And go to different people's houses or whatever, get generators.

But imagine if it all just went away.

Like the power went out and it never came back on.

Like this church, you know what we'd have to do?

We'd have to crush some walls and make some windows.

Or all of us just hold candles and light candles or something like that.

Like it would present itself with a completely new way of life.

Like we'd have to figure out, we would eat food differently, we would do things differently.

Like every if the if the power went out and never came back on, it would be the end of that world, and we would have to figure out how to do things everything completely different.

And so that's what is happening for the Jewish people.

Jesus is saying once this destruction happens, their entire world will come to a ceasing halt, and they will have to figure out a completely new way of doing life.

I'll have to figure out something completely different because that old world will come to a crashing halt and to an end.

And so he's saying the destruction of the temple will be outcome number one, it will be that their world is over.

Not the entire world, but their world.

And that's what Jesus is saying is going to happen.

And that is what happened.

Outcome number two.

How are we doing?

We okay?

Okay, great.

One person, love it.

Thank you, Boyd.

All right.

Outcome number two.

Outcome number two was Jesus says, outcome number two of the destruction of the temple is Jesus will be seen as vindicated.

This is verse 26.

He says, At that time, people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

Now, some people think this is a reference to Jesus' second coming, which is real.

He is coming again.

He says that he is coming back.

This just isn't a reference to that, okay?

This isn't a reference to that.

This is a reference to the coming.

Reference from Daniel 7, and it's not a reference to his second coming, but to him being proved correct.

And that's what Daniel 7 says again.

NT right.

Daniel 7, 13 and 14 says this.

They will see, this is Daniel 7, they will see one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven.

And notice, he doesn't come to earth.

It says he approaches the ancient of days.

He approaches God and is led into his presence.

And he was given authority, glory, sovereign power over all the nations, over all people, and every language every language worshipped him.

And so in Daniel 7, and T.

Wright continues, this is not about the return of the Son of Man, which is coming, but this isn't about that.

But this is about the Son of Man's coming to God after his suffering.

It is about his triumph.

It is about his vindication.

It's about judgment falling on the system that opposed him.

And so this passage isn't about Jesus coming back to earth, but actually going to the Father as ruler over everything.

And T.

Wright continues.

He says, the fall of the temple would be the sure sign that God has vindicated Jesus as the true representative of his people.

As a prophet, Jesus had predicted its destruction.

As Messiah, he had solemnly enacted it when he cleansed the temple.

Therefore, from Mark's point of view, this verse, it is about the complete vindication of Jesus, his resurrection, his ascension, and the outworking of his prophecies against the temple as sealing up the whole process.

And so Jesus prophesied that this would happen and they rejected him for it.

Now, when the temple eventually falls, they will have to, they will be forced to see that what Jesus said was going to happen literally happened.

They would in that generation, he prophesied it and they're like, You're crazy.

That's nuts.

That's never gonna happen.

When it did happen, it would vindicate him and their now they may not believe it, but it would do it and be like, We remember Jesus actually did say that this was going to happen.

And so now they see that he was right and they were wrong.

He told them that if you tear down this temple, referring to his body, that he would rebuild it in three days.

And then that's what he did.

And so now the stone of the temple, like the temple itself lies in ruins, but the stone that the builders rejected, which is Jesus, became the cornerstone.

So he has been vindicated in the eyes of, I told you this would happen.

I told you that I'm going to replace the temple.

You call the temple the light of the world.

I say that I'm the light of the world.

You say that the temple is where you get living water, I'm telling you come to me for living water.

You say that the temple is where the bread of the presence and the bread of life lives.

I'm telling you I'm the bread of life.

He is changing all of those things.

And when the temple falls and they no longer have the bread and the living water's not flowing from that space, and they don't have the light of the world standing in the middle of Jerusalem anymore, all of a sudden they're like, Well, I guess we're forced to look to Jesus as the person who actually did say these things are gonna happen, that he's gonna be the central Lord of history, that he's gonna be God's glory.

And so in this passage, he's saying they the outcome of the destruction of the temple will be they will see Jesus and his words and his prophecy and everything that he said was gonna happen to the temple.

They will see it.

Everything he said was going to happen is what happened.

They will have to see it.

Again, they may still reject it, but the fall of the temple would vindicate him as you're a false prophet.

No, no, no, I'm not a false prophet.

I'm a true prophet.

I'm actually the great prophet that was to come to you.

And so it would vindicate him.

Everything he said would happen would happen.

So that's outcome number two.

Okay?

And that's what the quote to Daniel 7 says.

Outcome number three from the destruction of the temple.

Outcome number three is that God's people will expand to the nations and beyond.

God's people will shift from just being Jewish people into the nations and the Gentiles.

God's people will expand to the nations.

Verse 27.

He will send his messengers and gather his elect from the four winds and the ends of the earth and the ends of the heavens.

And so again, you see that in the book of Acts, and that's still happening today.

The messengers are going out, and God is gathering his people from among the people of the earth, and the people who respond, but not responding to the temple and not becoming Jewish in order to become God's people, but actually becoming people brought into the family by Jesus and what he has done.

God is sending his messengers out into the world to draw people into his family.

The temple was solely for Jewish people.

The Gentiles could only, the nations, people, if you're like me, the Gentiles could only go in so far.

We actually have an image here.

There was this barricade that blocked, go to the next slide.

Yeah.

There was this barricade that blocked the court of the Gentiles.

They were allowed to come in, but only so far.

And then that's where they had to stop.

And then on the on the wall, the dividing barrier, uh, we have a stone uh on the next slide here.

And that's one of the stones.

And here's what the stone said.

And it said, No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the sanctuary and its enclosure.

Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.

And so, kind of a nice message to the Gentiles.

We should put that on our front doors.

Welcome, so glad you're here.

Listen, a couple things.

Um, but that's what that that was the this was the temple.

The temple was like, who can come in?

Only Jewish people.

Gentiles can come in, but only so far.

But then Jesus says that one of the outcomes after the destruction of the temple, that all of its regulations and all of its way of life will end.

And what will be the next step in that is that all the nations will be gathered in, all the nations will be welcomed.

And you actually see that happening in Acts.

Messengers going out into the nations and actually bringing Greek people in and other different nations in, into this thing.

And then Paul writes this in Ephesians to Gentiles.

He's writing the Gentile Christians.

And this is what Paul writes about what Jesus has done.

He says, Jesus himself has destroyed the barrier.

So that barrier that stood up and like blocked the Gentiles, is like Jesus has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside through his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.

Jesus' purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, the Jews and the Gentiles, and to reconcile both of them to God through the cross.

For through him we both have access to the Father, and consequently, you're no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

Notice the terms, building.

He's building something with Christ Jesus Himself as the cheap cornerstone.

And then verse 21 is the coup de grade, it's everything.

It says, In him, in Jesus, the whole building is being joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

Notice the language.

The temple, at this point, when Paul's writing this, it's not destroyed yet.

But all of these things, he is he is in the destruction of one temple.

He is building up a new temple.

But what he's building up is a different temple with different people where he is the chief cornerstone.

And now everybody can be brought in.

And so those are the outcomes of all those things.

It will be the end of the temple way of life.

And they'll have to figure out a new way to live.

And if you talk to a Jewish person today, let me know the last time they went to the temple and sacrificed something.

Because I bet they haven't.

And yet their Torah forces them to do that.

There's no way around it.

If they're going to be faithful to Torah.

It's the end of that way of life.

And then it's the exoneration or the vindication of Jesus who said, I told you these things were going to happen, and y'all rejected me.

You said that these things wouldn't happen, but now I'm proved true by my words.

And now you are forced to look at Jesus and go, He was right, I was wrong.

You can still reject him, but you're forced to see it.

And then it will be this space that, like, once this happens, and as this begins to happen, it begins to happen in Acts, as it happens, it will lead people to move further and further out into the world, bringing God's people into his family.

And so those are the outcomes.

The last thing Jesus finally returns to when this will happen.

When is this going to happen?

And then he tells him what to do in the meantime.

And that's verse 28 through 37.

He says, Truly I tell you, it will happen in this generation.

It's going to happen in this generation.

And so it happened in AD 70.

We know that.

No one knows the specific day or time.

No one knew that at that particular time.

Only the father knew.

And so he says, Because you don't know, keep watch, keep alert.

He doesn't say get weird.

He doesn't say that.

He doesn't say like march out in the streets with picket signs.

He doesn't say make you know movies about left behind.

Don't do that.

He doesn't say any of that.

Don't do judgment houses and tribulation trails at your synagogues or whatever where you're like trying to scare people.

Don't he doesn't say any of those.

He's like, just be faithful to me.

Keep watch.

Be faithful to me.

And all those different things.

That's what he says.

And so, in summary, this passage is predicting the destruction of the temple system that has rejected him.

When it falls, it will be the end of their world as they know it.

And simultaneously it will vindicate him as the true Messiah of God.

And then salvation will be preached in his name to all the earth.

That is what this chapter is about.

Okay.

Couple of things as we close.

Time set.

We're okay.

Couple of things.

What do we do with this information?

Probably guessing already.

First application.

Please don't be weird about the end time stuff.

Okay?

Don't do that.

Don't be weird about the end time stuff.

The disciples did not hear this and become really strange, strange in their own right.

But they did not, it wasn't this that led them to make strange things.

Do not be weird.

As a kid, my dad took me to this church and they had a tribulation trail where you like walk through this thing and you got to see people like being, you know, fake shot before gun lines and stuff.

And then they're at the very as you left that, that was the tribulation, as you left that, you'd leave into this space.

And uh some you know youth pastor, counselor, guy would see me on the other side, be like, Do you want to experience any of that?

And I was like, obviously not.

He's like, then you need to pray this prayer.

And I was like, I don't even know what this is, I have no idea what we're talking about.

Like, it wasn't like, do you want Jesus?

I was like, Do you want to do you want to get shot in front of a firing squad?

Like, no, like great, then you should you should come to faith.

I'm like, I remember when you read in the Bible that here's how you share the gospel, hold them in front of a firing line.

Like, come on.

Just in case you haven't read the Bible.

It doesn't say that in there, okay?

Don't be weird about the end time stuff.

Don't start predicting dates.

There's this uh Billy Graham did that one time, and that I read this thing, and he did it one time, and he was so ashamed by it when it didn't come true.

He's like, Why am I doing this?

The scriptures clearly tell us not to do this.

Why am I doing this?

And so the disciples didn't start predicting dates, they didn't start carrying picket signs saying, repent for the end is near.

They didn't start panicking and try and decode every single news clip on the thing.

It's like, did you guys read that one on CNN?

Uh-uh, that one on CNN said some fox.

And if you read that one, that's what this means.

And you put these together and it's like numerology, Jesus come back tomorrow.

Like, don't do that.

They didn't listen to people who called themselves prophets and prophesy that the end was near.

They didn't panic when they saw natural disasters or heard of wars or saw wars.

They didn't panic.

They were the most stable people in history because they believed Jesus has already told us what's going to happen.

We trust him.

And so there's no reason to be thrown into a frenzy about this stuff.

There's no reason to panic.

And so they experienced, they heard these words firsthand, and it did not make them weird about end-time stuff.

We cannot read these things and lead us to start making decisions and doing things that make us odd in that way.

There's no reason to panic.

So don't be weird about the end time stuff.

Instead, here's what we should do one, passages like these should lead us to be more bold in sharing with others about Jesus.

They should make you more bold.

It can be odd, it can be scary, and all these different things, but like the disciples heard that destruction was coming to Jerusalem.

They heard this from Jesus.

And if you think about it, the largest church in history at that particular time was the church in Jerusalem.

They were doing their best to go tell every single person about Jesus, you can escape what's coming.

You can do that.

But it's not like they didn't, they didn't use the destruction of the temple or the destruction that's coming and be like, you better turn or it's gonna be bad.

But like if they didn't do that, knowing that destruction was coming gave them an urgency and a compassion towards their neighbors and towards their families and towards their people.

And they just moved out in boldness and going, even though you persecute me, I'm gonna tell you about this man, because I know what's coming and I don't want you to experience that thing.

And so it made them more bold, and it needs to do that as well.

We know the knowledge that those who reject Jesus are going to experience destruction, not only in this life, but in the life to come.

Those who reject him, that should lead us not to be like, well, they're gonna, whatever, they'll experience it.

They made their bed, they can lie.

It shouldn't do that.

It should lead us to go, like, look, something is is is is real.

Something is is coming, like it's it's said that it's happening.

There is life after this one.

And those who reject Jesus, this this destruction of Jerusalem is like a a foreshadowing of this small part of like what actually will happen to those who reject Jesus.

Anyone who rejects the king will not be protected by the king.

Anyone who rejects the God of the temple won't be protected by the God of the temple because you don't want him.

And so the knowledge that those who reject Jesus will experience destruction should lead us to be urgently compassionate towards those around us.

It should lead us to get over our fears of talking about Jesus.

Now it shouldn't lead us to use hell or whatever, it shouldn't lead us to like use those things to scare people into heaven and like you come to this tribulation trail with me.

No.

Just Jesus is good enough news.

And if you read any of the uh messages or the preaching or any way that people share the gospel in the book of Acts, they're not using destruction to scare people.

And so we shouldn't either.

They just talk about how good Jesus is.

He's good enough news.

And so one of the things that passages like these should do for us is it should make us more bold and share with others.

We should talk about our faith.

And then last, one thing that we should, second thing that we should do, don't be weird.

We should stay faithful to what Jesus has called us to do.

Stay faithful to what he's actually called you to do.

That's what the early church did.

Jesus said to them, keep alert and just stay basically saying, like, stay vigilant.

Continue doing the things that I've told you to do.

I have told you these things beforehand.

Keep doing the things I told you to do.

And so endure persecution even when it's hard, endure it, and continue to follow me.

Persevere in me even when it's difficult, persevere with me, even when it takes longer than you think.

And it's like, this is taking longer than I thought.

He said this would happen in my generation.

I feel like I'm about to die.

Is this gonna happen?

He's like, stay with me, stay faithful to me, keep watch, stay vigilant, keep following me.

And they say that this is true about the early church.

They just stayed faithful to what Jesus had actually called them to do and didn't get lost in these random arguments about end time destructive things, get lost in that.

Alan Kreider, in one of my favorite books, called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, he says this about the early Christians.

He says, outsiders are the pagans.

They looked at the Christians and saw them energetically feeding the poor, giving proper funerals to those who couldn't afford them, caring for the orphans who lacked property and parents, and being attentive to aged slaves and prisoners.

And then the pagans interpreted these actions as works of love.

And they said, Vide, look, look how they love.

We must not miss the reality that the pagans said, Look, Christianity's truth was made visible because it was embodied and enacted by its members.

It was made tangible, and then the pagan people were drawn by what they saw to approach the Christians and inquire about their faith.

And so they didn't approach the Christians when they heard about their numerology or their uh end times eschatology or their latest prophecy about the destruction of anything.

They didn't, that's not what drew them in.

It's not something that led them into fearfully receiving Jesus.

It wasn't that.

They just watched them, they watched Christians faithfully following the way of Jesus and practicing what he said to do.

And they they they didn't panic when everybody else was panicking.

When they heard rumors of wars, they weren't freaking out like everybody else.

They weren't thrown into upheaval, they weren't doing those things.

And so they just watched Christians doing this stuff, and it led them to say, like, whatever you have, I want that.

I want into that.

What is that?

That's like we know the ruler of the universe.

We know him.

He actually lives within us.

You can know him too.

And it led them to inquire about their faith.

And so for us, we don't need to be weird about end time stuff.

We just need to remain faithful to what Jesus has called us to do.

If you notice all those, if you read any of the examples at the beginning, most of those people stopped living life.

They just pulled their kids out of school, they stopped doing a bunch of different things.

Following Jesus in these spaces led them to stop a bunch of stuff.

Because it was like, well, the end is coming, therefore we need to stop.

And it's like, he does not say stop.

He says, be vigilant, continue, continue to follow me, continue to be faithful.

And that will be a thing that you lead this compelling life following me.

And that will be something that leads you ultimately to be in something compelling in the lives of people where they go, What is that?

It's like that's Jesus, and you can know him too.

And so we can make our faith visible and beautiful so that the world will see it and want it.

So these passages should lead us to that, to be more bold in sharing our faith, and then ultimately be more to double down on.

I'm going to practice the way of Jesus.

I'm not going to become fearful about what I see in the news, I'm not going to become fearful about what I hear that's going on in Jerusalem or Palestine.

I'm not going to become fearful in those spaces and allow those things because Jesus has called me to not be fearful about those things.

And so rather I'll just stay faithful to what he's called me to do.

And in doing that, we will make Jesus beautiful.

And so let's do that together.

Let me pray.