Sign of the Fig Tree

Morning church.

Passage this week is Mark thirteen, verses twenty-four through thirty-one.

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 take 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

It's great to see you all.

My name is James Rathwin.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

And right after our service this morning, we are decorating the church for Christmas.

We're going full whimsy.

And we uh will need your help to do that.

Now, church is like a family.

We're brought together as brothers and sisters in the Lord, um, but you don't really discover how much of a family it is until you try and decorate together.

And then we uh see how the fruit of the Spirit is working in our lives.

Do we have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control when we're trying to uh hang garland and one person's on one end and another person's on the other?

Um the only the answer is I don't know, we'll find out.

So stick around after church, it'll be fun.

There's gonna be pizza afterwards, and uh, it's one of my favorite uh things that we do each year.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

So let's pray and we'll move into our text about uh clouds and coming on the clouds with glory and the moon not giving its light and stars falling from heaven, and um we'll figure out what all that means.

So let's pray together.

Holy Father, we praise you for your loving kindness.

Lord, we are uh as we go through this time of year and we begin decorating and we uh remember your first coming and we look forward to your second coming, Lord, we act like we're preparing for a king to arrive.

And we uh get things beautiful and we make them bright and uh we look forward to your coming.

And Lord, we uh uh when we when we do this together, Father, I pray that you would help us remember that you have come, that our King has arrived, um, that the hope of the world has has come into our lives.

Lord, that we look forward to your coming again to make all things new.

And we ask that as we prepare our building today, that you would prepare our hearts for your coming, Lord, that we would look forward to you removing our sin finally and completely.

Lord, that we look forward to uh new heavens and a new earth where all things are new, where you are our light.

Lord, that we remember that this is a true story that we're in, that you really came, you really died, you really rose again, you really ascended to the right hand of the Father, you are ruling now, Lord Jesus, and we can know you now.

And pray that we would see the truth of this story, the trustworthiness of your word, that we might rest in your promises, Lord.

Lift this up in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, so this is our fifth sermon in the Olivet Discourse, and that's a long time to stay in one speech in Scripture.

And so it can be a little disorienting for where we where we are, and I'll be honest, this is the week of Thanksgiving, and this is this can be a tiring and exhausting week, and this morning's sermon will require a lot of attention.

Uh, we are working through some complicated passages, and we often have assumptions as to what these refer to, and we think we know what they refer to.

Um, but uh I think you'll find today that much of what you thought this text refers to, it actually doesn't refer to that.

It refers to something else.

And it'll take some work for us to be able to see.

Um, but the the one thing that uh I I want you to really get from this is, and that I want you to really see in this is that Jesus' words are true, that they are really trustworthy.

Like what Jesus prophesies will happen in this text to his disciples, 40 years later, it does happen.

And we know that it that exactly what Jesus prophesies here has taken place.

Now, if you were to be like listening to like some conspiracy podcast or something, and you heard like, hey, did you uh it somebody they were talking about like some ancient war?

Like uh, I don't know, like it Alexander the Great, when he finally makes it to the uh Indian Ocean, and he says, remember when he makes it to the uh didn't he weep because there was there were no more lands left to conquer?

We all know that feeling.

You know that feeling when you've built your empire and then you've run out of places to conquer.

Well, that was some legendary, some legendary battle like that.

And then if you were to hear, did you know that uh 40 years prior to that happening when Alexander was just a young man, um, that uh Aristotle himself wrote down the exact prophecy that that Alexander the Great would make it to this place, and we have the dating of this letter written that is 40 years before the letter uh it actually being fulfilled in Aristotle's life.

We would say, wow, that's incredible.

There's like this little, that's like a mythical story.

There's like this magical little piece of the world, I guess, back there in those ancient histories of where those things take place, and we would be filled with wonder and amazement at that happening.

Well, we we have that, and even more wonderfully in this text today, in the scriptures here.

We see uh plainly you you'd have to, you have to do all kinds of strange gymnastics with the text to unsee this, that Jesus plainly predicts exactly what will happen to the Jewish people living in Jerusalem within the very generation that he is speaking to, and then it does happen.

And yet people look back on the Bible and people will read today and they'll they'll say things like, uh, well, can we even know that Jesus really existed?

Is there any way of really knowing?

There's like this hyper unreal sort of skepticism, and uh then you'll see other folks doing all kinds of strange moves just to try and prove that the Bible is legitimate and that it's real and that the words of God are trustworthy.

Uh it's it's uh more plain and staring us more completely in the face than you could possibly imagine, that the Bible is just true.

That there's there's prophecies in Scripture that Jesus Himself says that are that are recorded and written down shortly after him saying them, and then they're fulfilled decades later, just as he said they would be fulfilled.

And it's in the book.

And it this is something that's so trustworthy and so plain.

And I want us to see at least that this morning.

And then I want us to see the shape of the story that Jesus is describing, which is which is this the old covenant with Israel is being brought to an end.

And the new covenant, which extends to all nations and all peoples, is being inaugurated in Jesus Christ.

And his kingdom is coming, and he brings his kingdom into the world, and he, by his death and resurrection, he will show that that old covenant, that old way of coming to the Lord by types and shadows and patterns of sacrifices in the temple, that that is done and has ceased and has been completely fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and he ascended to the right hand of God, and he is now calling all peoples, tribes, languages to himself, so that all might be united in him.

That's the story that we're in.

It's all united in Christ.

So the old covenant will pass away, and the new one comes in Jesus.

Our hope is that this really happened, that God really sought us when we could not seek him, fulfilled all the requirements of the law on our behalf in Jesus Christ, and by faith in him we come to know our Lord.

So, much of if you listen to today's text, and I'm actually just going to read it again, uh so it this is the this section of our of the discourse.

It says, 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.

Okay, now having just read that first paragraph, when do you think this is referring to?

End times, right?

So another way to ask this is do you think this has happened yet?

No.

Right.

Yeah, okay, so let's keep let's keep going.

I by the way, I'll show my hand.

I I hope to demonstrate this morning that it has.

Oh.

Do I have your attention?

Now let's read the next paragraph.

So that first paragraph sounds very end timesy, right?

Which is a technical theological term.

Now Jesus 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 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.

So that thing sounds very intimesy.

And then right after that, Jesus says, This generation, as he's talking to the disciples, this generation will not pass away until all the until wait, excuse me.

Until all these things take place, meaning all that he has prophesied will take place in this discourse will take place before this generation passes away.

He's saying, you will live to see this.

That's what he's telling his disciples.

You will live to see these events that I have described take place.

So that is uh uh so how do we reconcile these things?

Because I don't, you know, have my uh year uh uh uh my uh fourth century AD uh astronomical chart on me, but I don't remember it showing uh the sun being darkened, the moon not giving its light.

I don't remember that part where the stars fell from the heavens, and yet he's saying all of these things will take place within this generation.

Let's remember what this discourse is about.

Because it's been a long time, it's been weeks.

At the very beginning of this discourse, Jesus and the and the disciples walk out of the temple.

And when they walk out of the temple, the disciples turn back and they say, Look what beautiful stones and what wonderful buildings are uh make up the temple complex.

And then Jesus says to them, uh, You see these stones, not one stone will be left upon another.

He says, This temple will be destroyed.

And then the disciples ask, When will these things take place?

And what will be the sign of these things, all these things taking place?

That's the question that Jesus is answering with the discourse.

What will be the sign of the destruction of the temple?

Now, he uh Jesus so far in the discourse, we've seen him say, it so what he's describing is uh the then basically the next 40 years of the disciples' lives, leading up to the year 70, when the temple is surrounded by the Roman armies and is finally destroyed in Jerusalem.

And as he describes this, he says, look, there will be some things that will you might think are signs of this happening, but they aren't.

And those things are wars, rumors of wars.

That's going to be happening over these next 40 years.

And there's gonna be false teachers that come in, and you need to be able to withstand them because they will say that they are the Christ, but they're not.

That is not the sign of my coming.

And then he starts to describe to them what they are to look out for.

And what they are to look out for is when you see the abomination of desolation, which we had learned as we looked over this in the in the previous passage, was a reference to us to Jerusalem itself being surrounded by armies, because that's prophetic language, which Jesus is taking from Daniel, which describes a prior event, which they all know has already happened, which took place in uh uh around 170 BC, when Jerusalem was surrounded and the city was sacked and destroyed.

And Jesus says, when you see that happening again, Jerusalem surrounded and about to be destroyed, don't stay and fight for your city.

Don't stay and fight for your people.

Run.

Run to the mountains, run to the hills, get away from Jerusalem, because you will not want to be there for the tribulation that is about to come.

And the tribulation that comes is this terrible siege that Rome lays to the city of Jerusalem, which culminates finally in the destruction of the temple.

And Jesus is saying that destruction of the temple, this laying siege to Jerusalem, is God's judgment on this wicked generation for finally and ultimately rejecting the Son of God.

You are not a part of those people, he's saying to his disciples, but you are a part of a new covenant.

So don't stand and receive the wrath.

Run.

That wrath isn't for you.

Now you can understand why this message is so necessary, in particular, for the disciples to hear.

Because the disciples are this sort of strange intermediate figures where they are grown up and raised in the old covenant.

They're discipled in the ways of the old covenant with God's people, but then they uh in Christ, they they bridge this gap where they come into the new covenant and they join in the true the true Israel, which is in Christ.

And so they need to, they have to be thinking like this all the time.

We see this tension throughout the New Testament.

It's like the main tension in the New Testament.

For those of you that have studied Ephesians with us this semester, you uh you can see, you you may have even wondered, like, why is he talking so much about Jews and Gentiles and dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles?

Like, this doesn't, I don't really know what to do with this, this doesn't mean much to me.

But don't you see?

This is the main tension of this generation.

Because the old covenant has ended, and now the people of God are not those who are by blood or uh of the flesh, but they are the ones who are united by faith in Christ.

And so they're having to work this out.

What did that old covenant with Israel mean?

Do we still have to operate in those patterns?

And then they're realizing, no, we are free in Christ.

He has fulfilled all of what was required in the old covenant.

We live by faith in him.

So the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile has been brought down.

We are one new people.

And the disciples, they don't just, you think of being a Jewish person in this first century coming to Christ, you don't just bear that tension over where you're deciding what type of food you're deciding to eat with your new Gentile friends.

You bear that tension in your own self.

Where am I?

Where do I fit?

Because previously, it would have been the right thing to do to stay and fight for my nation, the Israelites, against these Roman occupiers, and that would have been that would have been the right thing to do in order to honor the Lord.

And now, Jesus is saying, destruction is coming upon the temple.

Run, don't stay and fight.

Okay, now I told you this is going to be a high attention sermon.

Now let's talk about the temple.

What does it mean?

Why are we talking so much about the temple?

The temple is the thousand-year-old center of life and worship for the Jewish people.

It is the it is the the point at which their uh identity is most true because this is the dwelling place of God with them.

And so it is the picture of the old covenant, and the picture of God's covenant of grace with his people for for all time, because what is the promise of the covenant?

I will be your and you will be my I will be your God and you will be my people.

And so that means that God dwells with his people, and the dwelling place of God with his people is the temple.

That's where they come to worship him.

And that's where he the sacrifices are made to him so that the sins of the people might be atoned for and they might come into the presence of this most holy God.

And so, this temple, when we're talking about the destruction of the temple, we're we're in the disciples' minds, this could not mean anything other than the end of the world.

Because how could the world persist when this is the center of existence?

Because this is the dwelling place of God on earth.

This is where we come to know the living and the true God.

And you're going to tell me that's going to be taken away so that not one stone will remain upon another.

This must be the end of the world.

But what Jesus is saying is, no, this isn't the end of the world.

This is the end of that covenant.

But there's a surprise.

Jesus has a trick up his sleeve.

There's a new covenant coming that will be fulfilled in him, and there's a new temple that will be made.

But the new temple won't be like this old temple.

It will be a temple, it will be a temple made out of living stones.

Because the dwelling place of God after the sacrifice of Jesus will be in our hearts.

We will be the temple, the church will be the temple in Jesus Christ.

And so when you start to see this, you get this dynamic that's shifting throughout the scriptures at the end of the old covenant and into the new covenant.

Think of Jesus talking with the woman at the well, remember?

And she says, she tries to make the conversation theological, and Jesus doesn't have it.

And she's like, okay, okay, so where are we going to worship?

Because my people say that we're going to worship on this mountain, and uh the uh Jews say that we're gonna worship on that mountain.

Which mountain is it, Jesus?

Gotcha.

We don't have to talk about my love life anymore.

And Jesus says, I'm not concerned about the mountains that we'll be worshiping on.

God is seeking for himself people who will worship him in spirit and in spirit.

Truth.

Now you can do that from just about anywhere.

You don't even need a particular mountain.

You don't even need a particular temple in a particular city.

The new covenant is going to be beyond the realm of imagination from what the old covenant had considered.

So, but you can see what I want you to see, and Jesus explains this to us what happens, uh, why is the destruction of the temple such a big deal?

How is it it because it is this it is this maximal judgment on the people of God for the rejection of the Son of God?

And Jesus has already told us this.

You remember the parable of the vineyard with the tenants?

There's a man who owns a vineyard and he leases it out to some tenants.

He, at the end of the harvest, he goes to send.

This is a parable that Jesus tells, by the way.

You probably figured.

Back into the parable.

And when the man who owns the field comes to collect from the tenants, he sends a servant to collect from them, the tenants kill the servant that the owner sends.

Okay, so the owner says, okay, well, let's try this again, sends another servant, they they uh kill that servant too.

And he runs out of servants, and the owner the owner of the vineyard thinks to himself, what if I send my son to these wicked tenants?

Surely they'll listen to my son.

And what happens in the parable is that the owner sends his son, and the son is killed by the tenants.

And then Jesus sort of turns it over to the crowd and says, What do you think the owner of the vineyard would do now that they've now that these wicked tenants have murdered his son?

And they say, Mark 12, verse 9, what will the owner of the vineyard do?

Mark 12:9

He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

Now, basically all of Mark 12, which we've preached through this year, was Jesus in uh direct combat with basically every faction of the Jewish people in the temple.

So the Sadducees come and try and tear him down, the Pharisees come and try and tear him down, the Herodians come and try and tear them down, and there's actually seven conflicts with the people in the temple.

And what we're supposed to see from that, that Mark shows us, is that at every level, you know, seven is a Bible thing.

If this happens seven times, it's complete, it's fulfilled, it's it's done, we can know it.

Jesus, the Son of God, was sent to the temple, the dwelling place of God, and he was at every level rejected by the people of God.

What will happen when the tenants reject the Son?

He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

Now, after Jesus shares this, the Pharisees gather together and they're like, I think he's talking about us.

And then they go off and plan to kill him, which is strange because there it's like, did you not just hear the parable?

But what will happen is they this will precisely be fulfilled.

And so what I what I want you to see is that what is the the the meaning of the temple being destroyed has been shown to us that the Son of God has been finally sent to the people of God.

He has been completely rejected within the temple.

He will be even more completely rejected the next day when he is taken and crucified and killed.

And at that more complete rejection, what we see is okay, so what's gonna happen?

They're gonna take the vineyard away from those people, and they're gonna give it to new people.

The special position of the Israelites as the people of God will be removed and it will be given to a new people.

And the Israelites will be able to participate in this very same offer as the Gentiles do.

But it is only through the name of Christ.

It is only by the name of Christ that anyone is able to be saved.

It is only in Christ.

Now that is the new covenant.

Only in the name of Christ is anyone able to be saved.

So, Mark 3.

So, what type of language ought we to be looking for when we're talking about the destruction of the temple, now that we know what it is?

What is the destruction of the temple that Jesus is talking about in the Olivet discourse that we're in?

It is God's judgment on his people for the rejection of the Son of God.

So, what we should be looking for when we're talking about the destruction of the temple is language of God's judgment against a people that will bring a nation to its end.

That's the type of language we should be looking for.

And what do we hear after that tribulation, Jesus says, in Mark 13, 24, our text for today, 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.

So before your mind goes to these celestial events, what we need to do is we need to read language like this, how the Bible teaches us to read language like this.

So, for example, that I would say that that phrasing at least rhymes with Isaiah 13, verse 10, which says, For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light, the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.

Isaiah 13:10

Now, what is that in reference to in Isaiah 13?

I'm just kidding.

You would turn that over.

I would be so impressed.

I would be so impressed if you were like, oh, it's the destruction of Babylon by the Medes, which is the answer.

This is Isaiah's oracle against Babylon.

And what this is a description of is actually later given to us in verse 17, where it says, God says, I will raise up the Medes in order to destroy Babylon.

So raise up the Medes in order to destroy Babylon.

What does that sound like in biblical judgment language?

It sounds like the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light, the sun will be dark at its rising, the moon will not shed its light.

This is when the Bible describes acts of judgment against nations where God is bringing those nations to an end, he uses the language of universal collapse.

He uses the language of decreation, as though the sun and the stars will be dark.

He uses this cosmic universal collapsing language.

And that's the very language, so that's the type of language we should expect to find when Jesus is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and therefore the end of this old covenant with this particular nation.

And that's exactly what we find.

It is the same sort of language that Ezekiel uses in his prophecy against Egypt.

It is the same sort of language that Jeremiah uses in his prophecy against Babylon.

And therefore, Jesus picks up this same language in his prophecy regarding the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

The text goes on in Mark 13, 26.

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

And you're thinking, well, that didn't happen.

I didn't see that happen.

Okay, this is another one of those things where we think we know what something means, but then we have to do that thing where it's like, yeah, but what how does the Bible teach me what this means?

Because I probably don't just know what that phrase means.

I have to go back to the text and let it teach me what these things mean.

So Jesus says, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

Now this is what this means is the ones who reject Jesus, the people who have who have uh worked for his crucifixion will then see, they will put it together that Jesus was the one who ascended to the Father.

Because that's what this coming in clouds with great power and glory means.

The coming in the clouds or with the clouds or to the clouds is not biblical language of coming down, it's biblical language of going up.

Because this is what is described to us.

Here's a now you you kind of know this phrase.

Okay, you you kind of know this phrase because Jesus will use it uh just a couple chapters from now.

Actually, it's one chapter from now in Mark 14.

And Jesus will be before the Sanhedrin, and when he's before the Sanhedrin, uh the high priest in Mark 14, 61 through 62 says, Again the high priest asked him, Are you the Christ, the son of the blessed?

Because they're trying to get him on blasphemy charges, right?

So they're probably thinking something like, Surely he won't just admit it.

You know, because once he if he just admits it, then we got him quartered.

Well, Jesus just admits it.

And Jesus said, I am.

You know, some people are like, you know, Jesus never claimed to be God.

I don't understand that argument at all.

Like it when you read through the Gospels, it's like literally, like almost all he ever does is put himself in situations, and you read it, and it's like, that seems like something God would do.

And here plainly, are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

And Jesus said, I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

That's what he says to him.

Now, another way to phrase what Jesus is saying there is, Yes, I am, and I will have my vengeance in this life or the next.

What he's saying is, you're about to crucify me.

And later on, after you kill me, which this is strange, probably for the high priest to hear, later on after you kill me, you will conclude that I have ascended to the right hand of the Father, and I'm coming with on the clouds with glory.

That will be the only thing left to you.

And the way that they will conclude that is because they will see their people utterly destroyed by him.

What is this reference to this coming in the clouds?

Like, why does he say this to the high priest?

Well, it's because, as in this text and throughout basically the whole all of it discourse, he's engaging with the prophecies of Daniel, which are the prophecies relating to the Son of Man, which is that name that Jesus has taken upon himself.

Basically, to say, like those prophecies in Daniel, me.

That's me.

That's why he calls himself the Son of Man all the time.

So in Daniel 7, verses 13 through 14, listen to this.

Daniel 7:13–14

Daniel says, I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days, and was presented before him.

So what is this coming with the clouds?

It's being presented to the ancient of days.

This is ascension language.

This is language of Jesus going to the right hand of the Father so that it is confirmed and shown He is God.

The authority that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son.

And to him, so Daniel has this vision of one like a son of man, like a man coming to being presented to the ancient of days.

And when he's presented to the ancient of days, it says, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that, listen to this, all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Jesus is saying in Mark 13, 26, when he says, And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and gl in great glory.

He is saying, when they see that they are finally destroyed here, and that God's wrath has been taken out against this generation by the destruction of the temple and the removing of the old covenant, they will conclude Jesus is the one who is doing this.

And they will see that all the authority we thought we had actually belongs to him.

The one we crucified was truly God.

And you can tell that Jesus is interacting with this text in Daniel because the Daniel text is coming on the clouds with glory, being presented to the ancient of days, and then it starts to talk about the kingdom, which is of all nations, tribes, and peoples.

And Jesus does the same thing in the discourse here, because in 1326 he says, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

That's that same language.

And then in verse 27, Mark 13, 27, he says, 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.

Now there's controversy because the word angels can be tra it, it's the same word for angels or messengers.

And usually when there's that type of ambiguity in scripture and there's this textual division of, well, do we translate it angels or do we translate it messengers?

I like to say maybe a little bit of both.

Because the angels go out to assist the people of God in the proclamation of the gospel.

But what will the life of the apostles be spent doing?

It will be spent in going to the nations to share this the gospel of this kingdom.

And when the old covenant ends and the new covenant comes, the shape of the church age, this age that we are in, is of the gospel going out to all nations, people, tribes, tongues, languages, and we proclaim this.

It is in Jesus Christ alone that you may be saved.

The Lord of Lords, the King of kings, the name given to us under heaven by which we might be saved, is Jesus Christ.

For all nations, tribes, and tongues, there's only one name.

There is one kingdom which is everlasting and will prevail against all other kingdoms.

Come to him, worship him, honor him.

And it's hard for us to tell because we live here and we work here and we go here every day.

But Denver in 2024 is at about as ends of the earth as you could imagine from first century Jerusalem.

And yet, here we are.

And what are we doing?

What am I doing for a living this morning, right in front of you, proclaiming Jesus Christ is Lord.

There is no other name under heaven by which we might be saved.

He came.

He fulfilled all of the requirements of the law on our behalf.

And by faith in him, we might come into his eternal kingdom, a kingdom that will never be destroyed.

And to you, person who has no prior claim on this, from whatever nation or language or tribe or tongue you happen to be from, the offer is extended to you.

Why?

Because the one who is Lord over this kingdom has ascended to the Father, the one from whom every family in heaven and on earth gets its name.

And at his ascension he is calling together all peoples to himself.

So come to him.

So that's what Jesus is saying, when he's saying that when coming on the clouds, and then after I come on the clouds, then I am, 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.

The ascension of Christ means the reaching out to the nations.

And we can know that too, because remember the ascension story at the beginning of Acts, when Jesus is standing with the disciples, and the disciples are like, so time to restore the kingdom to Israel, huh?

Great job with the resurrection bit.

Time to do the same old covenant thing again, right?

And Jesus is like, No, you don't get it.

And he says, What's going to happen is I'm going to send the Holy Spirit upon you.

And when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you'll be equipped with this power.

And you will go forth and proclaim the gospel from Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

And then, right after that, as a nice little, you know, exclamation point, Jesus ascends to the Father.

At the ascension, and by the way, when he ascends to the Father, what is it that hides him from our view, from the view of the disciples?

The clouds.

Yeah, that's right.

Kind of reminds me of that Daniel passage.

It kind of reminds me of what Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse, which kind of reminds me of what he said to the Sanhedrin.

Do you see how we're learning to use the words that the Bible teaches us to use?

Get the understanding that the Bible has of itself.

So when Jesus ascends, but that ascension, what is he talking about right before that ascension?

It's you're gonna go, you're gonna take this to the nations.

The new covenant spreads to the nations.

Okay, so finally, Jesus explains all of this to his disciples.

He explains there's a coming time, there's gonna be trials and tribulations.

Endure the persecution that you will face.

Uh hold fast to me as Christ, he says to them.

And when you hold fast to me, you won't be deceived by these false Christs that come.

And he says that that the temple's going to be destroyed, and here's the signs of when you know it's time to run, because that's going to happen, and that means the old covenant's ending.

And this will be the inauguration, this will be the final sign, or something like an ultimate sign that I have ascended into the heavens, that they killed me and I'm not dead.

And instead, I rule with all authority over all creation.

And they might be thinking, man, that's gonna be a lot of wild stuff.

And it's gonna be pretty hard to endure all of that.

And it's gonna be a pretty difficult coming.

And they they might have been thinking, and the king's name is slipping my mind, when the judgment's gonna come upon.

I can't even remember if it's Judah or Israel, and the king thinks to himself, well, at least I won't be alive when the judgment comes.

Hezekiah, Michael, reading scripture, making coffee, knowing Hezekiah.

Guy's on a heater today.

All right, you're on outside lights duty.

We need that, we need that energy.

But Jesus makes it this is the the least difficult part of the text to interpret.

Jesus 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.

It's a Mediterranean climate.

Not many trees go through like a leaf cycle, but the fig tree does.

And so when they see the fig tree, it's like, oh, it's putting out its leaves.

Summer's coming.

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

When you see the things that I have told you about now taking place.

You know that I'm coming.

This kingdom is breaking in.

And these things, by the way, are what the whole discourse has been about.

The abomination of desolation, that great tribulation coming.

Then Mark 13, 30 through 31, right after this, Jesus says, 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.

This generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

Now, some folks do some what I think of as like almost interpretive magic tricks, where it's like this generation doesn't actually mean this generation.

It refers to just this type of people or this.

But then you have to ignore so much of the way throughout the gospels that this generation, the phrase this generation is used, which is Jesus lamenting over this generation that rejects him, that it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will at the final judgment than it will be for this generation.

Why?

Because this is the generation that the Son of God appeared to and they rejected him.

So he has throughout the New Testament given us language and shown us that this generation is a generation that judgment will come upon.

And he's describing in this text what that judgment will look like, and he says that this generation, it's like we know what that means in this book.

This generation, what it means is this generation.

These people, you, this generation, will not pass away until all these things take place.

But is Jesus trustworthy?

You know, can we believe him?

Heaven and earth will pass away, Jesus says.

But my words will not pass away.

He puts this absoluteness in this prophecy.

He builds it right into this prophecy.

This is completely and absolutely fulfilled.

Forty years later, it's about the length of a biblical generation.

The armies of Rome will surround Jerusalem.

There will be false worship conducted within the temple, an abomination.

The temple will be laid desolate.

It will be placed in this terror.

The people that remain will experience this horrible tribulation as the whole city is brought under siege.

And from there we will see the church age begin in such a way that it will march against all possible opposition out to the ends of the earth, where people from all nations, tribes, and tongues will hear the proclamation: Jesus Christ is Lord.

The one who was crucified.

There's a new covenant in Him that goes out to all peoples.

Come to Him, and you will be saved.

And the glory of the new covenant will swallow up the old.

And we'll see this incredible message of salvation in Jesus Christ proclaimed to all of us.

So you can think of it like this this is a discourse about the end of the old covenant.

And right after this discourse, he will go with his disciples.

This is, by the way, this is a this is called a really good segue.

That's what you're about to experience.

Right at the end or shortly after this discourse, he will go with his disciples, this discourse about the end of the old covenant, and he will invite them into the beginning of the new covenant with him.

The hope of the new covenant is the same.

I will be your God, you will be my people.

But the basis of it is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled all that was required in the old covenant.

He becomes the sacrifice for our sins.

He becomes the true high priest which would have worked in the temple, who lives to intercede on our behalf.

He is the king who rises and conquers his enemies into our enemies and gives us good gifts.

And those good gifts are the Holy Spirit, which gives us the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, an eternal hope of salvation in him.

Paul writes regarding this, for I received from the Lord what I what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

This takes place just a couple of days later.

This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, he took the bread and he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he will be betrayed and arrested and crucified.

And his body will be broken, and that will be all the sacrifice we need in order to receive his eternal life.

And his blood, he will take the cup and he will say, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.

The new covenant.

The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come that will go out to all tribes, nations, and tongues.

And what will the basis of it be?

It will be the sacrifice, the poured-out blood of Jesus, which is sufficient to atone for our sins for all his people, once for all time.

One sacrifice is made in Jesus.

He lives to intercede for us so that we by faith in him are brought to the Father.

And we live in this hope of the new covenant.

Christ died on our behalf, so that by faith in him we might be saved.

So the wrath which is demonstrated against that generation is a picture of the wrath which will come against all who reject Jesus.

And that is coming at the end of the age.

And this is, in a sense, a picture of that, although it is not that is not its direct referent.

But our hope in Christ is that we can know we will come to the Father, enjoy his presence eternally because of the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf.

Have faith in him.

As we decorate today, let us celebrate this story.

Our true King came, he died for us, he ascended, and all authority was given to him.

Let us rest in him.

We have the true hope of the new covenant in the blood of Jesus.

That's the story we're in.

It really happened.

Or Jesus is just like a particularly good guesser.

It really happened.

His words are true.

His salvation is real.

So we invite all of you who've been baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who confess Christ Jesus as Lord to come and partake of this covenant meal with him.

This meal which says, We are at peace with you, Father, because of the sacrifice that Jesus has made on our behalf.

The new covenant has come.

Our hope is in the one who fulfilled all that was required on our behalf.

Holy Father, I pray that you would bless this meal, that you would work in our hearts to see the reality of what you have accomplished for us.

That the old things have passed, behold, new things have come.

Lord, in our own lives, we need this resurrection to take place, Lord, that the old things would pass and the new things have come.

Father, I pray for those who are outside of Christ now that they would see the promise that is extended to them to be made you, excuse me, to be made new by faith in you, Jesus, and trust in what you have accomplished.

Lord, let your name be blessed.

May we celebrate you today.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.