Be Vigilant: Understanding the Signs of Jesus' Return

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Okay, Chris, you got

to make it both fun and practical. Oh well that's frend to Connor.

And yeah, well he's calling us friends first. We got to work on

that one. Well, the practice will come later, but for now,

Yeah, yeah, here we go. So we're going to do a taboo.

It's guess the word. So it's it's the same rule as as taboo.

I have a word that I'm trying to get you to say, and

I have a list of five words I'm not allowed to say. So for

those people watching and not listening, we'll put the words up on the screen

that Jeff is not allowed to say, but not the answer. And then

for those for everybody listening, including watching, you just try to guess the

word before I do. Right, let me see if I can do it

in one sentence. Okay, that's my challenge today. The largest land animal

elephant. There you go. Were you not allowed to say? I was

not allowed to say trunk, ivory mammal, trunk again and zoo. She

wrote trunk twice, So don't you dare say Trunk. Yeah, yeah,

I tried not to. Actually, it's all I can think of. When

I saw Trunk twice, I'm just thinking, said Dumbo is a yeah,

yeah, large work too. Yeah I did. Yeah, it's okay,

thanks for correcting me. You still got your point, you got. I

just told you what I would have is not a correction offering what I could

have done. It would have been better, you know what. No,

I didn't do any of that. Yes. Uh, you go to the

theater to watch Swan Lake. What is swan Lake? Is that a Broadway

show? No, Swan Lake, I don't even know it's one like this?

That a musical? No? Is that they wear tights? Oh,

it's a ballet. There you go. Okay, that was a real one.

Were you not dance? Point to to bear? I b A R

R E? What is that? And girl? Oh I would have got

it if you'd said that Cracker. I don't know what is a song inside

of? Well? Did you know that swan Likes actually a movie too?

Okay? And it's a subdivision down the street and the sandwich shop right,

okay, okay, that's where you like the water ski Okay? Uh,

your favorite kind of comic books are spider Man okay, and he is a

superhero. There you go, superhero. I wasn't an to say cat Cape,

mask powers, secret identity or Batmanatman. So buddy, okay, uh

okay. In the summer, yep, everyone goes out at night and looks

up in the sky together star to see what stars? No, no,

no, it's an event. People buy a bunch of them and uh and

shoot them into the sky. Fireworks. There you go, fireworks. And

then this is a hard one. Oh wait, you didn't tell what you

was allowed to say, Sparkler explosion Fourth of July celebration or America. Oh

so that's what hard one? Yeah? Yeah, America. Yeah yeah,

I could have said no, like I say that. Let me see.

Oh oh oh, I got this one. So when you went to uh

Florida last year with your buddies, right the guys, he had an electric

one? Oh, a bike, a bicycle, bicycle. There you go,

pedals, wheels, handlebars, brakes and exercise. I couldn't say wow,

So good job you got them all man. Thanks took a while on

the ballet, but hey, we'll forgive you. I don't know that zac

Efron has ever done a ballet, so how would you know whatever? Whatever?

And by the way, he should okay, by the way on that

on that bicycle electric bicycle thing. Yes, So it was like I call

it the old man trip, you know. So I'm in my fifties.

Two guys I was with were in their seventies, and this is who I

went down and spent a week in Florida for a wild time. You're a

wild time man. They stayed up past four thirty in the afternoon. And

actually what end up happening was we got these electric bikes and we went really

far. We went from like Clearwater all the way to Duneaton, right,

and we went and got some ice cream everything else. And on the way

back, one of the batteries on the electric bike dies. Right. Well,

you know this seventy year old guy that I'm with, right, he's

a man's man, like, he's super strong. He was like a boxer

his whole life. I mean, he's just a really strong guy. Right,

And he goes, Chris, he goes, how about this? He

goes, you get on my bike and I'll pedal this home. And you

know, we're in one hundred and twenty degree heat into Florida in the summer,

right, And I'm like, I'm like, you're gonna pedal home?

And he say yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so I'm like,

okay, Rick, all right, I'll give it to you. So

he gets on the pedal. We literally pedal for half a block. We

get to the intersection and I pull up to him and I look at him

and he he looks like he's ready to pass out. He's breathing heavy,

he looks like faint. And I was like, dude, I said,

just give me back the bike, because you know, those things are hard

to pay. They're heavy, They're really really heavy. And I said,

I just passed a restaurant. I said, you guys, I said,

ride home. I'm gonna go in the restaurant have a bowl of soup.

It was actually chowder, right, I said, I said to get some

Yeah, I'm gonna go get some seafood chow. I have some chowder and

some prunes. And I said come back and get me with the car.

And that was how we did it. So but yeah, it was totally

an old guy's trip. It was really fun though. Electric bikes are fun.

Okay, So there you go. That was that, Yes, and

I got to tell you that was a fun one for me, because guessing

is not hard. Yes, Hey, everyone, if you're listening on one

of the audio platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Speaker, would you do

us a favor? Would you take just a moment and follow us? Because

I'm worth following, and Jeff is along with me, so you know you

can follow him. I guess too, by proxy, but or just share

it, you know, because people need to be introduced to the Bible guy

and his companion named Jeff. So we are continuing this conversation that Jesus was

telling all about his return. Yes, and so we've already done the first

half and the second half of Matthew chapter twenty four. We did the second

the first half of Luke chapter I mean of Mark chapter thirteen, and the

first half of Luke chapter twenty one. So today we're gonna come back and

we're going to pick up doing the second half of Luke thirteen. Yeah,

it'll be similar. Yesterday's probably very similar. Yeah, yeah, we're going

to point out the differences. That's correct. So we're going to start Mark

chapter thirteen, verse twenty four. Jesus said at that time, after the

anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give

no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in

the heavens will be shaken. Then everyone will see the Sun of Man coming

on the clouds with great power and glory, and he will send out his

angels to gather his chosen ones from all over the world, from the farthest

ends of the Earth and heaven. Now learn a lesson from the fig tree.

When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that

summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things

taking place, you can know that his return is very near, right at

the door. I tell you the truth. This generation will not pass from

the scene. Before all these things take place. Heaven and Earth will disappear,

But my words will never disappear. However, no one knows the day

or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or

the Son himself. Only the Father knows. And since you don't know when

that time will come, be on guard, stay alert. The coming of

the Son of Man will be illustrated by the story of a man going on

a long trip when he left home, he gave each of his slaves instructions

about the work they were to do, and he told the gatekeeper to watch

for his return. You too, must keep careful, watch for you don't

know when the master of the household will return in the evening night, before

dawn or at daybreak. Don't let him find you sleeping when he arrives without

warning. I say to you what I say to everyone, watch for him.

M Yeah, so this one, it's all about vigilance, be watchful.

Yes, I was going to say that the wording is actually very very

similar the story about the story of the man going on a long trip that

has a lot less detail, right, right, and then there's also more

application, just like you said vigilance, because he says it very I mean,

look what that's like three different times, even in the middle of it

he says, you know, he's in the middle of the story, and

he says, you too, must keep watch. So he's actually like telling

a story and applying it as he's telling it. Yeah, which is kind

of cool. Yep, it's neat to see how Jesus teaches, Yes,

right, Jesus as a So everyone smile, you and I we both because

we speak a lot. Different Christians have different opinions about how they want the

Bible taught. Oh yeah, I know Christians have opinions, which by the

way, hey, by the way, listen, let's listen. I gotta

throw this out. I got for this and this is so quick. I

was watching Big Bang Theory. It's one of my favorite shows in all the

world. And Sheldon caught his mom, you know, doing something, and

he says, oh, you're such a hypocrite, right, And she says,

Sheldon, I'm so sorry, you know. And he goes, well,

and he has to find himself to forgive her, and he says,

this is the funny part. He goes inside, I will continue to judge

you and condemn you internally, but on the outside, he says, I

will continue to extend to you love and acceptance. And then she says,

well, thank you, Sheldon. That is very Christian of you. And

I laughed so hard. I was like, oh, my goodness, it's

so funny. It's really good. So but on occasion, you know,

and it's because there's different thoughts with regard to preaching, and I was just

looking at a program of preaching, particularly with regard to teaching, and I

was looking at the idea of how do they teach preaching? Yeah, yeah,

and you know, so there's the idea that what you should do is

you start with the verse, and you start at the beginning of the passage.

You read at the end of the passage, you expose it's expository preaching.

You expose the meanings of all those words in order. Right, there's

others that would be very applicational, and others that would be very doctrinal,

So applicational meaning like Jesus here he's in the middle of teaching, and then

he pauses, now, hey, you should be alert too, and then

he goes on and keeps teaching the rest of the thing he's using an illustration.

And then there's the highly doctrinal ones, the ones that are taking significant

Biblical passages that are the foundational passages for major doctrines. And then you build

the whole rest of the idea. Right, so those would be the three

big ideas. What you find Jesus doing is regularly doing all three and oftentimes

blending them into just one message. So he just recently we quoted at the

very very beginning, we quoted Isaiah thirteen to ten, Isaiah thirty four to

four, Joel two ten. He's using that as a foundational piece to say,

hey, God's going to return. Now he's using those three verses.

He crammed three verses into one one quote here, but he's using the scripture

to say God's going to return and it's going to be in this time when

the sun's dark and the moon doesn't give any light, starts to fall from

heaven powers and heavens will be shaken. And he's talking about whoa, this

is gonna be scary stuff. So there's the there's the Bible thing he's quoting

there. Then he he gives an illustration look at the fig tree. And

then he comes to the end because now you should be watching three times you

keep watching, keep watching, keep watching. Right, So he does all

three in the mess and it does a parable Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

I mean you know it's a metaphorical story, right right, Yeah, And

so yeah, I think about all those different methods, right just in these

few verses. Right. So, so sometimes when we're teaching on a stage

or even in a you know, classroom or whatever. H heck, even

even at a coffee shop, you can you can use a visual aid,

right, yeah, but to use a visual aid to illustrate something is something

very common, or a word picture or a word picture to grab people's attention.

And like, I remember one time when we talked about the glory of

God and we talked about how the glory is uh uh you know, it's

it's the it's the giving something weight. Yeah. Right. I put water

up there and I dropped like a rock versus a feather, right, and

talked about how God's word needs to carry weight in our lives and be a

part of it, you know, versus floating on the surface with no weight

at all. Wow. And it was it was really good. Yeah.

And it's like we had the camera up there, real close whatever, and

I had this older man, I mean older I'm talking about this guy looked

like he had gone to church his entire life. He might be like you

know, early nineties, late eighties, and he comes out into the lobby

and he goes, I got to tell your son, he goes, that's

the best illustration I've ever heard about glory and worship in my entire life.

Wow. Yeah, right, that which carries a lot of weight. Right,

Not to have a pun there, but I was just thinking, Wow,

what a statement. Well, think about it. That's what Jesus did.

Oftentimes he's like, look at that fig tree. He's like, do

you see how it's blooming. He's like, in that same way, here's

what that means. And in that way, here's how you know what I'm

trying to say. So it's just interesting how, just like you said,

all different teaching methods in one spot here in one spot. So what the

highlights for me is we may have our preference how we like to hear it,

but the reality is there's not a right way. And sometimes people will

come off saying this is the only way. You should only preach from the

beginning of a book of a Bible to the end of a book of a

Bible. You should only preach from the beginning of a chapter or the end

of the chapter, whatever, that's the only way to do it. Or

the other side. Oh, you know, you get bogged down if you

use too many verses. Here's what you need. You need a couple verses

and then you're a verse and then just get to the point, right,

use some illustrations and those kinds of things. And here Jesus is using three

different passages right there. He uses the parable there with the fig tree,

he uses this story about this man coming back, and application. He does

them all. And so the main point for me for preaching is to get

people from where they are to God. And the way you do that is

by exposing what the word in the text say. Right, So Jesus is

giving them some indication about what that is, and then he also then gives

them application. So you're trying to get them from where they are to Jesus.

That means that they have to be willing to open their heart and their

minds, which means you got to capture their attention. Hey, it captures

my attention. When he goes, the sun will be dark and the moon

will have given no light, the stars will fall from the guy, and

the powers I have and will be shaken. That's what's going to be like

when I come back. Right, That gets my attention, right if you're

looking at it. So he does that, but then he moves into an

illustration, this parable idea, He tells us, a story, he gives

solid application, and those things altogether. What he's wanting you to do,

he's trying to move you. He's trying to move you to be ready.

He's not trying to inform you. And where preaching sometimes falls down, our

Bible teaching falls down is when it's just informative. But Jesus almost never was

purely informative, right. Jesus always gives information for the purpose of moving you

somewhere. He loves you just the way. I just had this conversation lady

today about this. God loves you just the way you are, but he

loves you so much he won't just leave you there. He's always moving you.

There's a journey he's taking you on. And so even in this passage

I think better than anything else we've seen so far recently, is he does

all of those things together. Yeah, and think about this too. So

an example would be like, okay, so he used the Old Testament,

and you know what he's doing there. Oftentimes what we do is we take

certain parts of the scriptures and we'll connect them to other parts of the scriptures,

and we'll be like, look at what's happening in both of these scriptures.

And there's a theme here, there's an observation, there's a truth.

So Jesus what he's doing here is he's connecting some dots and he's doing Old

Testament versus you know, current times and even future times, so that's connecting

the dots. And then he does this thing with the fic tree. You

know what, I would liken that to like insightful. Oh that's pretty insightful,

right, I mean, I know you're not teaching anything new about the

victory, but you're saying in the same way I should. Oh, okay,

that's insightful. Helps me understand it. And then what he does is

I thought about this just a minute ago. He actually says something that's brand

new information. He says, let me tell you about when the second Company's

gonna come. Nobody knows, not even us, not even me, not

even the angels. Right. So what he's doing right there is he's telling

somebody something brand new and they're learning something for the very first time. And

oftentimes somebody measures a good sermon by saying I have to learn something, right,

And sometimes I'll get a sermon and people are like, I didn't learn

anything new. And then my next question, Vilie says, are you currently

doing the thing that you already know? And then they say, uh no,

And I'm like, within that sermon's for you, go back and work

on that, go back and work on that. That's why I got to

have me say it. Right, So there's something brand new, it's insightful.

And by the way, I also agree that. I think that when

something is brand new and insightful where you've never seen before, to me,

that's the best kind of message to hear. Like you're like, man,

I never thought about that, Or that's so powerful, that is so insightful.

You know, it was right there the whole time, but I never

saw it before. When you learn something new, that really is some of

the best. You know. That's because the Word is so dynamic, right

right, I mean, man, in life, you've been a Christian for

how many years? I've been forty something years. I've been a Christian.

Yeah, and I've read through the Bible so many times. But man,

we have a conversation like this, how many times have we had the Oh

my gosh, I never thought of that before, right, hey, I

just saw that just now, just because God's Word is living. It's not

a dead book, it's a living book. And so he says here,

he says, I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass right.

So we already read that. And then he said heaven and Earth will

disappear, but my words will never disappear. Yeah, Heaven and earth will

disappear. What does that mean? Yeah, yeah, well they will,

right. So he tells us eventually there's going to be in a new heaven

and a new Earth. He's going to make it all in all new,

right, right, So this is all be destroyed someday, but God's word

will never go away. At the time, can you even imagine what they

thought? Like, were they thinking literal? Yeah? Yeah, right,

yeah, well it is literal he is talking about. No, I know,

I know it's literal, but I'm just saying, like when yeah,

they're thinking, they're thinking what right? Yeah, it's it's pretty amazing.

And and I would also say this. I would also say, because it's

so applicable at the very end of Mark's passage, it's also a great reminder

that I'm not sure that Jesus did anything without an application. He wasn't always

clear. Sometimes he would say something and say, he who has ears to

hear, let him hear, right. And he would also say that there

are many people who aren't going to understand these things, sure, right,

So in that case, he wasn't always you know, crystal clear with the

application. But whenever he did decide to teach something that did have a crystal

clear, you know, a crystal clear point, he was always clear to

say, this is what that means. So I would just say this.

One of the reasons why I, you know, decided to even become a

pastor and a communicator is because I grew up going to church and it was

so irrelevant. Now and lets say that differently, it was irrelevant to me,

right, So like like like I didn't understanding to say, God's word

is never irrelevant. Sometimes we don't understand the relation. And it's the communicator's

job to make you understand the relevance and so and so to me, it

was just like, I don't understand why we're doing this. I didn't learn

a single thing, you know, I don't have any knowledge. I was

never encouraged to read the book myself. It was just read to me and

and and they would say things and I'm like, I don't even know why

we even talked about that today, right, And then one day I wandered

into a church and it was the church that changed my life. It's the

church I ended up getting saved at and you know, becoming a Christian at

when when they gave a message and I understood that it was useful, it

was relevant, it was practical, it was applicable, and honestly it was

it was going to help me as a person. And when I understood that,

I thought, Wow, there's more to learn, and it's possible to

teach something in a creative and fun and engaging way, but more importantly,

it has application. So for me, that's why I become a pastor.

It's powerful man, and that's why it's important to not just read the words,

but to figure out how to apply the words. When we teach,

it's not just about teaching facts, it's about figuring out how to apply them

right to It's the responsibility of the preacher to take God's heavenly ideas and make

them approachable by the listener. Right that that's our role. And so I'm

just intrigued by jesus teaching style. And we would all learn a lot if

we just pay attention to jesus preaching style instead of only listening to professions.

Tell us what's the appropriate way to preach? Right? Hey, So I

guess this last illustration that he closes with he says, the coming of the

Son of Man will be illustrated by the story of a man going on a

long trip. I guess the long trip is from the time that Jesus ascends

into heaven until he returned till he returns. Right, So everybody, everybody

at first worried that he's going to come back. And you know what,

does Matthew say that when we read yesterday? He says, and then he

decides, oh, maybe he's not going to come back. He's not coming

back for a while. So he decides to what he cuts loose. Right,

that guy cuts loose, decides to do everything that's what's right in his

own eyes. And then it says, and all of a sudden, boom

baby, he comes back. The boom baby was in the Greek, original

Greek, wasn't it? Well, I thought it was an emperor's new groove.

Oh yeah, I didn't see it in the English translation. But it

must have been in the original Greek. There's a little note here in the

Life Appication Bible says boom baby, which is the Hebrew pronounced boom baby.

All right, all right, I get it, I get it all right.

Chris's emphasis for sure yeah, no, that's great all right. Well,

hey, that looks like our time and we will see you next time,

hopefully on the Bible. Guys,