John 11:17-27 (End Time Victory)

The Hopeful Burden of Preaching on Victory

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you. When you're about to preach a sermon on victory, you should not be surprised when you have many defeats in your week. Last night at 2 .30 in the morning, I went to go get Shannon at the emergency room because she had an issue that turned out not to be anything serious at all.

There was confusion even in my own heart on how to write this sermon. There was, this is the third version of it that is there. I worked tirelessly, but yet I felt like the words weren't coming out. We shouldn't be surprised when the Lord has given us such a hopeful message in the Bible that it's accompanied with so many trials.

Why Eschatology Matters for the Church

Eschatology really is the study of Christ's victory. That's what it is. But yet there's no discipline in the Christian church that has caused more confusion, headaches, heartburn, and frustration than eschatology.

There's no discipline that has exposed more false teachers, that has more staunchly divided people, more difficult to understand, and kills more reading plans at the very end of them than eschatology.

You don't have to raise your hands, but how many of us have got to Revelation and said, I'm just going to go back to Genesis? I think there's no topic that's more necessary for us right now in this time that we live in to understand more importantly than eschatology.

Now, eschatology, you might not know what that word means, so let me define it. Eschatology is the study of the last things. It's the study of the end times. It is a word that's actually made out of two Greek words.

They take two Greek words and smush them together and you get eschatology. The two Greek words are eschatos and logos, or logos. Essentially, eschatos means in Greek, the last, and then logos means words or thoughts.

So when you smush those together, you get thoughts or reflections about the end times. And that's what eschatology is. Thoughts are reflections from God upon the end times. Now, eschatology, I believe, is absolutely necessary, even though you may not have heard that before, and you may have heard many people say, no, eschatology has no impact on my life.

I don't need to understand eschatology. I think that's wrong. I think eschatology is one of the most important doctrines that we need to understand. I'm not talking about, you know, the charts and the person who lives down in his cave and is talking about how, you know, Nicolai Carpathia, that's a left-behind reference, is getting ready to rise to power, and Israel's going to get a new temple, and we all ought to be afraid.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about biblical eschatology is important for the church to understand. Now, I could give you a hundred reasons. I'm one of those weird people that love this topic so much and probably have read more books on this topic than any other topic.

I love eschatology because eschatology is the story of Christ's victory. So I could give you a lot of reasons, but I'm going to give you eight. This is my introduction, by the way. So if we just get this accomplished, I'll be happy.

The Holy Spirit Put the End Times in Scripture

Number one, the reason why eschatology is important is because the Holy Spirit of God put it in the Bible. We like to say that eschatology is confusing. Who could possibly know what it means? Who could understand it?

All of the symbols and marks of the beast and signs and all of that. Why would we ever endeavor to study something like that? We say even the scholars disagree. You read all the amillennial, the postmillennial, the premillennial, the pre-trib, the post-trib, and your mind is spinning and you're like, who in the world would possibly ever try to endeavor to understand this topic?

We don't like the genre because we don't have apocalyptic genre in our reading where symbols represent things. We find the signs hard to understand, and we often wonder why does any of it make a difference?

I've heard many, many people, even learned theologians say that they're a panmillennial, which means that it'll all pan out in the end. I understand that sentiment. I agree with it. But that sort of view causes us unintentionally to avoid the study of eschatology because if it'll all just pan out in the end, then what's the point of studying it?

God's just going to make everything work out. But the Holy Spirit put eschatology in the Bible. The same Bible that he says was breathed out by God, the same Bible that he said is useful for teaching and rebuke and correction, the same Bible that he says that we ought to know and study, the end times is in there.

The Holy Spirit decided it was a gift for you and I to have it. If it was not necessary, God wouldn't have put it in the Bible. That's the first reason eschatology is important, because God put it in the Bible.

And this Bible is for us as a gift of God so that we can understand what it means. So why would we not study something that he put in there? The second reason is that God writes good endings. He does.

God Writes Good Endings

God's a master storyteller. Human history is his epic, grand masterpiece. You can imagine God thinking and dreaming and singing creation into existence with a glorious ending in mind. Master writers don't write bad endings.

You read some of the greatest works of literary art that have ever been penned. They have the greatest endings. They take all of the pain and the trauma and the suffering and they elevate it to a riveting climax and then they settle it into this beautiful reconciliation where the story ends and everything is just right again.

Everything is just right again. How much more so God, who is the author of human history? Do we really believe that God, when he set out to write a book, killed it in the beginning with this beautiful night show and these planets colliding and all of this epic stuff and then it kind of died down a little bit in the middle and then there's this other climactic moment where Jesus dies on the cross and then there's a dud of an ending?

No. That would make us poor readers. None of us approach a Charles Dickens. None of us approach some of the great works of history. Jane Eyre, any of them. You can go through hundreds, thousands of them even.

None of us read the first 75 of it and then close the book and refuse to read the ending. Why do we do that with eschatology? It's hard. It's complicated. But it's a beautiful story when you see it for what it truly is.

That's the second reason. It's a beautiful ending to a wonderful story that God has written. We're a part of it. The third reason is that eschatology gives us direction. You see, when we say that everything will pan out in the end, I understand the sentiment.

One of my favorite theologians from Ligonier Ministries, Derek Thomas, just said this. And as I was writing the sermon, I was like, no, I'm not going to disagree with Derek. But eschatology is not about something that's going to pan out in the end.

It's about Jesus' victory. If you believe that it's just going to pan out in the end, every time you go to church and hear a sermon on Revelation, or every time I mention AD 70, the fall of Jerusalem Temple, then you'll just shut off and you'll say, this doesn't apply to my life.

But let me ask you this question. How can you know where you're going if you don't know where you're heading? How can you know the path if you don't know the destination? The end is important. Eschatology is our future destination as Christians.

Biblical eschatology is actually a clear destination, and you have to understand all of it in its context, but it gives us a bright hope that Jesus wins, that His victory is certain. If that's the destination, then everything He's called us to is not a calling towards defeat.

It's not a calling towards failure. His calling to the church is a calling towards His victory. Amen. And we're called to make progress on the things that He's told us to do. If we believe that the world is just going to hell in a handbasket, why does it matter?

Go to church, live out your faith privately in your living room, talk to your friends about it, but don't go try to see Jesus' kingdom advanced in the world because it's hopeless. There's no point. But if Christ will have victory, if Psalm 110 is right, and He's going to put all of His enemies under His feet, if Psalm 2 is right, and that He's going to inherit the nations, if Matthew 28 is right, and all the nations are going to be discipled, if Matthew 22 is right, and all the nations are going to hear the gospel, and if Matthew 18 is right, and the gates of hell can't stand against the advancement of the church, and if Romans 16 is right, that the church itself will put Satan under its feet, if all of that's right, then it's not a meaningless doctrine.

It's a doctrine of victory. We can't forget the destination because if we forget the destination, we'll be lost along the way. We'll be sort of out of step with what God has called us to. Let me give you an example.

Imagine that I told you, hey, you and I, we're going to go on an epic road trip. I'm going to show you all kinds of wonderful things, and you said, all right, great. I even say I'm paying for it, and you're like, all right, I'm in.

And then you ask me, you turn the car on, we're both sitting in the car, we're right outside in the parking lot, and you say, all right, where do I go? And I say, I don't know. And you're like, what do you mean you don't know?

And I say, well, it'll all pan out in the end. Just go a certain direction, and eventually we'll get there. You would be like, Kendall's a fool. You'd never take a trip with me ever again, because you can't expect to get there if you don't know where there is, right?

Again, eschatology is important. It keeps us on the right path. It keeps us moving in the right direction that God has called us to. It keeps us focused on the things that God has called us to be focused on.

That's the third thing. The fourth is eschatology helps us worship God. Your worship will be affected if you have a low view of eschatology. Let me read you a quote by David Murray. He's Scottish, so it's David Murray.

I'm not going to read the quote in Scottish. Worship should be the end of all theology, but especially of eschatology. When we think of the resurrection, the defeat of Satan, the final and perfect judgment, the new heavens and the new earth, the eternal fellowship with Christ and His church, we surely cannot but amplify our worship of God.

If our eschatology does not result in greater worship of God, then we are either in error or we are approaching the truth in the wrong spirit. You see, what we've done in the last 200 years, we've bought into an ideology called dispensationalism, or we've at least been influenced by it, where all of our energy is thinking about the Great Tribulation, the Antichrist, the Mark of the Beast, the wars and rumors of wars, the plagues, the famines, the earthquakes, the blood moons, the falling stars.

All of that has caused us to be defeatists. The reason the church in America is not advancing is because we believe that everything is getting worse and everything is going to crash in upon itself and that the Mark of the Beast is getting ready to happen.

Don't take the vaccine or the Antichrist is going to come really soon. It's probably going to be Dr. Fauci. And we've done this sort of false prophecies that have been a part of the church for the last hundred years and we've totally missed the point.

The point's not the struggle, the point's the victory of Christ. If we believe this way, where everything is just doom and gloom and everything is about reading our newspaper to find some new evidence about why the Antichrist is going to rise in the year 2022, I'm going to give you 22 reasons and all of this stuff.

If we do that, we're going to be a paralyzed church because we're living basically for a grand defeat instead of living in light of a glorious victory. I think Murray is right. If we forget the doctrine of the end times, then we will live as a paralyzed church and we will live as a church that struggles in its worship.

I mean, how can you praise God if you believe that everything is getting worse and worse and worse and that the world has just as much control over things as God? If you believe God is sovereign and He's leading the church towards a glorious future, it changes your life.

It changes the way that you live. If you think that the end, the heavenly Wonkavator that's going to zap us all out of here, is just two weekends away, you're not going to go outside and plant beautiful trees that are going to grow for a hundred years.

You're not going to sit down with your children and try to disciple them so that their children's children's children will know the Lord. You're going to live like you're getting ready to escape instead of living like you're building something that will last for generations.

That's where we've been stuck as an evangelical church. We've given up on trying to reach the world so that we could get ourselves ready for an escalator ride to the sky. And it's crippled us. It's caused us not to have ardent, vibrant worship.

Eschatology, Zeal, and Dominion

The fifth thing I would tell you is that eschatology helps us serve with zeal. Knowing that God wins in the end invigorates our service. When we see verses that say these light and momentary afflictions aren't even worth comparing to the glory that's going to be revealed when Christ comes, do we believe that?

Do we believe that our cancer, do we believe that the car wreck that crippled us, do we believe that the pains and the sufferings and the trials and the persecutions, we believe that all of that is accounted as nothing in comparison to the victory that Christ is going to win for His people?

Or are we myopic and we say that, no, these things are bigger than God? And if we live that way, we won't serve with zeal. We'll hunker down in our foxhole and we'll wait for Jesus to come and save us.

Jesus has saved us. He saved us for a purpose. That purpose is to go to the nations and share the hope of the gospel. Not to live as fearful. To live courageously. To know that He's using us. You know, God's still working in the world.

Do you know that? Do you know that God is more powerful than the forces of darkness? Do you know that Jesus is still on His throne? Do you know that Christ is still reigning? Do you know that these silly little presidents and these silly little senators and these silly little House of Representatives folks are nothing compared to the monarch Christ?

And He's using you. You belong to Him. I want you to think about it this way. If you believe everything is going to hell in a handbasket, what motivation would you have to get involved? If life is just about surviving instead of thriving, then you won't work, you won't build, and you'll continue to eke out an existence of mediocre, good enough relationship with God until you punch your ticket to heaven.

That kind of motivationless effort abounds in three great institutions on planet Earth. Communism, true socialism, and a church that doesn't believe rightly about eschatology. When we understand eschatology rightly, we see that Christ is going to gain total victory.

He's going to ensure that His church advances. The gates of hell won't stand against it. All the nations will be discipled. Every tribe, tongue, and nation are going to confess Jesus in the end. That Satan is going to be bound.

That death is going to be defeated. That Jesus is reigning. His enemies are going to be triumphed over. The curse is going to be ended. Your back pains and your swellings and your high blood pressure are gone.

Tears are going to be wiped away. Death is going to be killed. How can we be pessimistic when we know this? If God told you, God would not do this. Let me preface this. But if God told you, you're going to win the Masters.

All you got to do is grab your clubs and go down to Augusta, and it's a formality. You play, you win, you're going to get the green jacket. You say, well, I'm not a good golfer. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

You're going to win. It'd be foolish if that were the case, that you would just stay at home and say, I could never win. Let me say it this way. If God said to you, this is another example that would never happen.

God said to you, you're going to win the lottery. I'll even give you the exact numbers. All you got to do is fill out the card and it's yours. Would you really stay at home? Or would you go to Cumberland's as fast as you possibly could and fill out those numbers?

Again, God would never do this. But if God has promised you something, why would you sit on it? We do that all the time with eschatology. God has promised us that he's going to have victory in this world, and yet there's so few that are standing up.

There's so few that are taking hold of these promises. There's so few that are preaching the gospel to their neighbors and to their coworkers and to the people that they live around and serve with and work with and their friends and their families.

There's so few that are making war with their sin, believing that we live in a spiritual battle. There's so few that are trying to take back territory from Satan. If we know Christ, why are we sitting down?

Why are we not a militant church? And I don't mean militant in a way like the world. Why aren't we believing and hoping in the gospel and proclaiming it to the nations? And when I say church, I don't mean Shepherd's Church, although if it applies, let the Holy Spirit do his work.

I mean the church universal. Why are we so stuck in our sins? Why are we not growing? Why is the church collapsing and shrinking in the West? Why are children being sent out of the home ignorant of the faith when the parents had every opportunity to disciple them?

Why are we living like defeatists when we've been given a story of victory? That's number five. Number six is that eschatology gives us a right view of dominion. We were created by God to have dominion.

Did you know that? Genesis 1, God spoke us into existence. He crafted us with His hands. He breathed life into our nostrils, put us in a garden, and He says, you will be fruitful and you will multiply and you will spread out to the ends of the earth.

And what does He say after that? You will rule over it, subdue it, and have dominion. The earth was created for human beings to have dominion over. And God called that plan very good. Well, if God called that plan very good, why would He abandon and scrap it in the New Testament?

When Jesus says, go in all the world and make disciples, do we not see that He's telling us how to be fruitful and how to multiply and how to spread out to the ends of the earth and how to rule over the earth and have dominion?

By making disciples of every tribe, tongue, and nation, by making disciples of our neighbors and of the people that we work with, sharing the hope of Jesus Christ. And then when they ask us for the hope that we have, 1 Peter says, we tell them the hope that we have and we teach them how to obey everything that Christ has commanded.

That is dominion. We don't have dominion by nuclear warheads and sniper rifles and anything else. We have dominion through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to reclaim this world for Him.

And we don't do it without Him. We do it with Him because He said He, that's His mission. We do that until the job is complete. You see, one of the things that irks me so badly is that most of our views of eschatology end in defeat.

That Jesus has to come and rescue us at the end. Do you know that communism has an eschatology? Their eschatology is that the whole world will be won over to communism. Socialism has an eschatology. Buddhism has an eschatology.

They all think they win. Why is it that we think we lose? Especially when God has told us that we don't. The reason we don't lose is because God doesn't lose. The reason that God doesn't lose is because Christ died to claim the victory.

We live in that victory as His people today. The church is the helpmate of Christ. Have you ever heard it said that way? Christ is the true and better Adam. What does that make us? The true and better Eve.

What was Eve's job? To be the helpmate of Adam. What is our job? To be the helpmate of the church. What does that mean? Helping Christ accomplish His mission of winning back the world for God. When the Old Testament says that the glory of God will cover the earth as the water covers the seas, I don't know if you've been in a boat, but in the sea there's a lot of water.

It's almost entirely water, right? God's glory is going to cover the earth that way. We're the helpmate of Christ to help Him accomplish His mission, not to sit on the sidelines. I love how David Chilton says this.

David Chilton wrote an excellent Revelation commentary. He's like me. He started out to write a 50-page book and it turned into a 700-page treatise, but this is what he says about Revelation. Revelation is not a book about defeat.

It is a book about dominion. Revelation is not a book about how terrible the Antichrist is or how powerful the devil is or how terrifying the world will one day become. It is, as the very first verse says, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

It tells us about His lordship over all things. It tells about our salvation and the victory in the new covenant, God's wonderful plan for our life. It tells us that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and it tells us that He and His people shall reign forever and ever.

We often live like this world belongs to the world. Jesus said in Matthew 28, everything in heaven and on earth now belongs to me. We live in Christ's world. It belongs to Him. All the people who think they have power are usurping His authority.

They're the squatters that shouldn't be here. The church has the job to take the gospel to the nations to tell them whose world this actually is before it's too late. The seventh reason why eschatology is important.

Have I made my case yet? Eschatology prepares us for the current war. You know, we're in a battle. New Testament calls what we live through a spiritual battle. It says there's spiritual weapons and spiritual armor that we have to put on.

This world that we live in is a battle. The world is not lying down and giving up. The world is still raging, and our job is not to throw in our arms and say, well, Jesus called me to be tender, meek, and mild, and I'm not going to tell you anything that offends you.

I'm not going to tell you the gospel that would rub against your lifestyle. So look at me. I'm just a super sweet sugar and spice Christian. That's not the story of the Bible. The story is the Bible. We love people so much we go to them and tell them that there's only hope in Jesus, that their life won't get them anywhere but hell.

You think about an army. I was in the army, and I can tell you that we did not do what I'm getting ready to say, but if you ever think about an army who's getting ready to go to war, would they go without a plan?

Any brigade that's going to take a particular hill, would they go without talking about which part of the hill was the most opportune to strike? Would they not examine the enemy's troops and figure out, well, we don't want to go here, we want to go there?

Would they not study the landscape and find the weak points in the hill and say that this is how we need to get there, this is what we need to do? They would have studied it. They would have done everything possible to understand how they can have victory.

That's the way we are supposed to live as Christians. We study culture. We study the world. We study what's going on in the world, and we take the hope that we have in Christ and we say, Lord, how would you use me?

Here I am. Send me. We don't throw up the white flag as Christians. We take the powerful gospel of Christ to the nations. Soldiers, army, Air Force, Marines don't act like the battle doesn't matter. They work really hard to make sure that they win the war.

I think that's what we're supposed to do. We're to work really hard as people who are going to be held accountable for our life that's been purchased by Christ to see Christ's victory in this earth. Eschatology helps us understand a completed battle.

What I mean by that is that when the soldiers in World War II, this is an example, when they took over the beaches of Normandy, they didn't celebrate, crack open a few beers, and get their grill out and start making hot dogs.

They knew that Normandy was not the end goal. Normandy was the start. They knew that if they didn't eventually take Berlin, then the whole war would be fought for nothing. As Christians, eschatology is our Berlin.

Eschatology tells us what the last hill that needs to be conquered is. And what is that? A world that is filled with worshipers of Jesus Christ. We don't throw up our hands because the news depresses us and the daily wire gets us angry and CNN makes us vomit.

We don't do that. We look at the world and we say, every tribe, tongue, and nation has not been discipled yet. I've got work to do. Every tribe, tongue, and nation hasn't heard the gospel yet. I've got work to do.

There's not a Bible translated in every language. I've got work to do. And we keep working and we keep laboring and we keep looking beyond our 9-to -5 job and our family by training our family, by living intentionally, by going to war for the sake of Christ.

Eschatology teaches us why we fight, when we fight, how we fight, who we fight, and where we fight. And we fight with the weapons of Christ. Word, prayer, sacraments, the church, evangelism, discipleship.

We know our weapons. Are we going to let them rust? Are we going to use them for the glory of God? Now you're like, maybe thinking, Kendall, why are you going off on a big, long list of why eschatology is so important?

It's because I never get to preach on it. No, I'm just kidding. The reason I'm bringing up those first seven points is because eschatology is incredibly important, but it's also in our text for today.

Eschatology, understanding the end times, is actually littered throughout the Bible. The first eschatological statement is Genesis 3, where it says that Christ will crush the serpent's head. The last eschatological statement is when all the curse is finally removed and we live with Christ forever in His kingdom.

It starts with the crushing of the serpent. It ends with a completed kingdom. The end times is all throughout the Bible. If you don't understand eschatology, I don't think you'll understand the entire mission of God.

So today, as we look at John 11, 17 through 27, this is the last time we're going to look at this passage. We're going to look at how eschatology underpins this passage. The last two weeks, we've talked about how Jesus is Lord over death, how Jesus is Lord over the resurrection.

Now we're going to talk about how He's Lord over the end. So with that, turn with me to John 11, 17 through 27, and let's talk about these things together. Verse 17. So when Jesus came, He found that He had already been in the tomb, that's Lazarus, four days.

Now Bethany was near Jerusalem and two miles off and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. Martha, therefore, when she had heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him.

But Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. And Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

And Martha said to Him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day, eschatology. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this? And she said to Him, Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that we have the freedom to meet here today, that we have the freedom to park our cars and not worry about who's watching.

We have the freedom to dive in to a statement of what Martha said about the last day. Lord, I pray that, I pray that that freedom would continue. I pray that our church would be riveted by the words of Christ and the gospel of John for however many years we continue in there.

And Lord, I pray that even if it doesn't continue and it becomes difficult for us to meet as a church or the powers that have squatted in your territory threaten us and assail us like what happened in the book of Acts.

Lord, I pray that we would not have fear, that we would not be discouraged. Lord, I pray that we would be encouraged, that we would see these light and momentary afflictions as not even worthy of comparing to the glory that will be revealed on the day of Christ.

Lord, I pray that we would see your scriptures rightly. Lord, I pray that we would live in the victory of Christ. And Lord, I pray that that wouldn't be a shallow thing. Lord, I pray that all of the wicked, vile, disgusting pastors, quote-unquote, who preach a shallow victory in self-help, in your beauty, your health, your wealth, your material possessions.

Lord, I pray that you would crush that kind of shallow, superficial ministry and that, Lord, we would see the robust, deep, unbreakable victory that you have brought in Christ. Lord, it's in Christ's name we pray, amen.

The Jews' Physical and National Misreading of the End Times

Obviously, this topic is too big to cover in one week. I'm currently writing a series of blogs on the topic, and I don't even know how long that will take. I think I've got it marked out right now, up to 30 weeks or more, so it's a big topic.

It's all over the Bible. But all I want to do today is I want to accomplish four things, just as a very, very big, 100 ,000-foot overview. I want to know what the Jews believed about the end times. I think that's important.

Martha says, I know that my brother will be raised on the last day, so we need to know what she thought about that. We need to know what Jesus thought about the end times and when it would begin. We need to know what the last days are going to look like for all of us who are going to be facing them.

And then finally, we need to know how the last days will end. So my goal is to talk about what the Jews believe, the beginning of the end times, the middle of the end times, and the end of the end times.

And we'll do that from 100 ,000 feet or so. So let us begin with the Jewish misconceptions about the end times. Mary again says, I know that he will rise again on the last day. So she has eschatological theology.

She believes something about what the last day is. That word eschatos, where we get eschatology, is right there in her words. Now, we know that she didn't believe like the Sadducees did. The Sadducees at the time had no view of resurrection.

They believed that when you die, you're dead, you're worm food, that's it. Your only eternity that you would have is that you would live on in the memory of your children and your children's children and your children's children's children, much like many liberal atheists believe today.

They were the minority view. She actually held the majority point of view, which was the Pharisees' view. The Pharisees' theology was not based on the first five books of the Bible alone, like the Sadducees.

Their theology was based on the entire New Testament. They had passages like Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Zechariah, and others that taught them to expect something was coming in the future for them, and it was going to happen in Israel.

So they had a view of eschatology. I want to begin with Isaiah chapter 2 to sort of give a very brief overview of what the Jews thought about eschatology. Again, there's more verses than this. We can only cover a couple, but I want to demonstrate to you what the Jews were looking forward to and what they believed.

Isaiah 2, 2 through 3, it says, Many people will come and say, come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us in His ways so that we may walk in His paths.