Preparing For The End

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Shayne Poirier on Mark 13:1-13.

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.
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Well, we're in Mark Chapter 13 now. I'm not sure if anyone has been looking forward to this particular chapter.
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If you've been reading ahead, certainly there might be some anticipation. I've heard it said that if you want to attract new people to your church, just put a sign outside that reads, we are preaching on the end times.
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Votie Bauckham once said that if you want to draw a crowd, advertise that you're going to preach through the book of Revelation.
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There are a few things that draw the curiosity and the fascination of Christians, like the study of eschatology, that is the study of the last things.
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And perhaps more than in any other era in church history, at least in the 20th century and in the 21st century, people want to know how and when
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Christ will finally return, more than ever, perhaps. Countless books have been written on the subject, among a list of the most popular
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Christian books of all time. I was looking at it this week. What are some books that you might expect there?
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My brother's facial expression in the corner indicates what it might be. They're almost all bad books.
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But one of the top books, one of the top bestsellers of all time, is Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series that stands near the top with an estimated 80 million copies sold of the
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Left Behind series. Now, let me just say, if you put that into perspective, that is about 79 million copies more than the modern classic
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Knowing God by J .I. Packer or some of the more modern ones, even like Desiring God by John Piper.
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And so, if you're in a Christian bookstore this week and you find that on the shelf there is Left Behind or Knowing God, let me recommend
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J .I. Packer's book for you. But that doesn't change the fact that people want to know
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God's plan for the great and cataclysmic end of the world. We can't help but be enraptured by the topic itself.
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And so, this week as we turn to the Gospel of Mark in chapter 13, we're going to find the longest concentrated section of Christ's teaching in this gospel.
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And interestingly enough, it is on this topic of the future and of the end times.
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And who would have thought that Christ's longest recorded monologue in Mark would be on this topic?
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Perhaps some of us, if we were to try to think about it beforehand, would say that maybe Christ spoke about love more than any other topic in Mark, at least in a concentrated session.
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Perhaps some of us would say on Christian ethics or even Christian salvation.
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But no, it's here near the end of Christ's teaching ministry that we find this extended red -letter section.
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If you have a red -letter Bible, you'll see that almost the full chapter of chapter 13 is in red words.
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And it's Christ's words on what is to come, both in relation to Jerusalem and in relation to the whole world.
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And it begs the question, why this extended treatment? Why would Christ speak at such length about the last things, or at least the things to come?
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And I think that what we will find is that Christ is not, in this chapter, so much interested in promoting rampant speculation about the eschaton, the last things, nor is he trying to put together material for Christian fiction writers and end -time bloggers.
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But what Christ is intending to communicate as we look into this chapter is that even in the midst of this wicked and rebellious city where he has now been ministering to, or ministering for almost a week, even in this corrupt temple amongst the religious elite that exemplify the problem in Israel, and even in the greater context of this fallen world,
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I think what Christ is conveying here is that God's purposes are not and will not be thwarted.
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Even after Christ departs, he is not leaving his disciples as orphans to fend for themselves.
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But God is in control of history, and he is bringing all things to their rightful end in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And even though the road will be hard after Christ's departure, the call of the
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Christian remains. This could be the thesis statement for our text today. In the midst of God's approaching and imminent judgment, and in the face of many adversaries, fierce adversaries, the
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Christian is to remain watchful, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the
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Lord. We're to be awake and alert and to live in accordance with Scripture, even as things get dark, even as things get difficult.
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And so we're going to jump right into our text for today. We've just read it in Mark chapter 13 and verse 1.
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And what I want to do today is this. I want us to survey briefly verses 1 and 2, and then we're going to spend the remainder of our time looking at a few different exhortations, or we could say some imperatives and an indicative from verse 5 through verse 13.
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So let's first read verses 1 to 12. It says this, And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him,
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Look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings. And Jesus said to him,
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Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.
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After what would have been a really long day of teaching for Christ, contending with the Pharisees and the heresies and all the rest in the temple court,
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Christ would have likely had his fill at this point with the Pharisaical hypocrisy that he had found in the temple and had found amongst the religious elite.
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Nevertheless, as he and his disciples made their way out of the temple, we see that one of the men drew
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Christ's attention back to the temple. Here, the disciple points out the wonderful, he uses the word wonderful stonework, and the majestic architecture of the temple structures.
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And what I want to do is just pick apart verses 1 and 2 for a moment so we can gather a little bit of what this scene would have looked like.
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In verse 1, this disciple references the stones and the architecture as wonderful.
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Mark uses the Greek word potapos, which can be translated to mean extremely good or remarkable.
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And remarkable is a perfect word to describe Herod's temple. Kids, you might remember over the last number of months, we've heard about some of Herod's architecture.
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Herod was, by all means, a madman in every sense of the word.
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He was a bloodthirsty, crazy leader. But one of the things about him was that he was a very able architect, or could at least plan building projects on a very large scale.
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And one commentator has said that at no place was Herod's great obsession with grandeur and permanence more apparent than in the
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Jerusalem temple. The temple complex itself was absolutely massive. We'll remember back when
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I was speaking about the temple court that the complex itself measured 500 yards by 325 yards.
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In farm language, 35 acres. If you're a sports fan, about 12 football fields lined up together.
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It was absolutely massive. And this was evidenced by the time that it took to build the temple itself.
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Herod the Great started the construction of the temple in B .C. 20, 20 years before Christ.
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And when Christ stood there with his disciples, likely in A .D. 33, the temple was still under construction some 53 years later.
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In fact, the construction of the temple did not end until the destruction. Sorry, did
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I say? I have a lot of structures. The construction of the temple did not end until the destruction of the temple in A .D.
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70. It was still being built when Rome invaded it. And not only was it massive in its footprint, but because of the rough geography and the hilly location where Jerusalem is situated, a towering retaining wall had to be built to hold up this temple structure.
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And so, if you were to stand below the temple mount in the Kidron Valley, you would have to look up 15 stories just to the base of the temple court.
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That's how large the retaining wall was. In fact, if you were to travel to Israel today and to meander through the
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Kidron Valley, what you would find is massive stones that formed the base of that retaining wall.
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Now kids, how big do you think those stones were? Do you think they were as big as a car?
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As big as a chair? Any guesses? As big as a van?
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You know what? Probably at least four times. Well, I'm not sure how long a van is. Depending on if you have a homeschool van or a regular van.
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Maybe one or two vans. Like a minivan. Like a minivan. Maybe like two or three of those. One of the largest stones that you can still find at the base of the
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Kidron Valley is 42 feet long by 15 feet tall.
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And it's 11 feet thick. It's over a million pounds in its weight. All before the modern crane.
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And the temple building itself stood above this massive retaining wall. And was equally enormous.
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Made of brilliant white marble stones. In Luke's words in Luke chapter 21 and verse 5, noble stones.
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Historians tell us that they may have been even bigger than the foundation stones at the base of the retaining wall.
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On the east side of the main temple building, the exterior wall was covered with gold plates. Which when the sun would rise in the east would shine on the plates.
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And those who would enter into Jerusalem from the east would be able to see the temple glowing for miles.
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As they made their way to worship in the temple. At the time of Christ's ministry,
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John MacArthur says, Herod's temple was one of the most magnificent man -made structures on planet earth.
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And it was true. But even as his disciples marveled at this temple's overwhelming beauty,
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Christ has another thing in mind. And we see that, don't we, in verse 2. Christ begins, instead of reflecting on the majesty of the temple, he begins to look forward to the future.
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When God will sovereignly repay Jerusalem for its wicked deeds. Just as God used the surrounding nations to discipline
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Israel and to discipline Judah. Hundreds of years earlier, he began bringing Jerusalem to nothing.
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It was nearly 40 years later that this exact event came to pass.
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Exactly as Christ had foretold. And many of us know what happened, don't we? In AD 70.
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So about 37 years after Christ. The Roman general Titus. He was the son of Vespasian, one of the
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Roman emperors. He would himself go on to become one of the next Roman emperors.
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Besieged the city of Jerusalem. After the Jews had engaged in what has become known as the
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Great Revolt in AD 60. Now, if we were to go to Jerusalem at that time, the population of the city itself was only about 200 ,000 people.
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But when Titus and his military marched in in April of AD 70, it was only three days before the
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Passover. And you'll remember that three days before the Passover, well, that's this exact day that Christ is reflecting with his disciples.
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And what's happening in the city three days before Passover. But everyone, from everywhere, all of the
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Jews in the Roman Empire have made their way into the city, into the temple court, to contribute to this massive machinery that was the sacrificial system.
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And so, even though Titus entered into or surrounded, besieged Jerusalem in AD 70, the population was only 200 ,000.
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At the time that the city was besieged, the population within the city was at least 1 .1
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million people. So again, for perspective, that's larger than the population of the city of Edmonton today.
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All tucked into that ancient city. And from April of that year to September, with this massive assembly of Jews crammed behind the walls,
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Titus and his troops slowly starved the city. That's one of the techniques of besieging a city, is to block all outside sources.
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And while the Jews remained in a stalemate in the city, what we found is this, that whole families would starve together.
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At least one woman was known to even have cooked and eaten one of her own children.
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The people were picking the leather off their sandals and eating it just to survive. And Titus and his army eventually had enough when the
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Jews began to dump the dead bodies over the outside of the wall. What was happening inside the city is not only were people dying of hunger, but then there would be grave robbers that would, even as they approached death, would begin to rob their neighbors and steal belongings that they had, and they would dump the dead bodies over.
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And so when Titus and the Roman forces had enough, what they did was, with their constructed scaffolds, they covered it in wood and flammable materials and lit the scaffolds on fire.
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And the intense heat from the flames actually caused the rocks in the wall, the stones in the wall, to crack and to break, and eventually for the walls to collapse.
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And on September 8th, Titus and his Roman forces overwhelmed Jerusalem and took complete control of the city.
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They went from house to house, historians tell us, where they killed an untold number of Jews.
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In some houses, they would enter into the home to kill them and would have to leave before they got all the way in the door because of the stench from the dead bodies who had already died of starvation.
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Eventually, the Romans grew so tired of killing that they established some basic exemptions to allow some
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Jews to escape. Josephus tells us that over one million Jews were killed in Jerusalem in AD 70, and nearly 100 ,000 were captured and taken as slaves.
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There was so much blood from the invasion that the blood ran through the streets and extinguished some of the fires that were burning.
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The word brutal doesn't even begin to capture the scene. And when the
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Roman soldiers entered the temple, they ransacked it, they burned it with fire.
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Titus instructed all of the soldiers to knock over every stone, to collect every last bit of remaining gold.
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The brilliant edifice that once gleamed like the morning sun became a smoldering heap of rubble.
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The only stones left on top of each other were those massive stones at the retaining wall, at the base of the temple mount.
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And then to recognize Titus' achievement in this great feat, the Emperor Domitian later erected the
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Arch of Titus, which still stands in Rome today. If you were to get on an airplane and travel to Rome this afternoon, what you'd find is the
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Arch of Titus is there standing in the city. And if you were to enter in underneath the Arch of Rome, what you'd find if you look up is relief depictions, carved relief depictions of the
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Roman armies carrying out the menorahs and all of the furnishings and all of the belongings from the temple.
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Not only did this happen, it's historically validated. And Josephus said of all of this, he said,
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Caesar ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground. All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely leveled as to leave future visitors no ground for believing that Jerusalem had ever been inhabited.
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When Titus and the Roman soldiers came, it was as if they erased Jerusalem from the face of the earth with just a few stones left in the
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Kidron Valley. Now, dear friends, I want you to see with me here for a moment and make no mistake about it, that God keeps
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His word. When Christ says that something will come to be, it will come to be.
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If God says, if you do this and you do it, the result that He has spoken will come about.
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We may treat God's word as a light thing today, but that which God says, He will do.
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When God issues a warning, oh take heed, He means what He says. So in these two verses, you find the whole future of this ancient city
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Jerusalem, all of which was fulfilled in AD 70. This is the backdrop upon which we're going to look now at these next four exhortations together.
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And what I want us to see is this. There's a great deal of debate about these passages.
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I'm sure there might be people in this room who would say they are a partial preterist. I'm not sure if people know what a partial preterist is, but a partial preterist is someone who says that all that Mark is going to say in chapter 13 has already been fulfilled.
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Save the return of Christ, that's why we say partial. Save the return of Christ, all of it has been fulfilled.
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There might be some people in this room who are futurists and who say that none of this has taken place yet.
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Save the destruction of Jerusalem, and all of it is going to take place in the future. I'm not here to debate what perspective to take today, but what
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I hope to say is this, that today I'm going to take what might be called an idealized perspective, that both this occurred as a shadow in type at the destruction of Jerusalem and will and points to a future event and even present events as the
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Christian experiences it today. And so what I would say is that the Lord has inspired this word not just for his disciples and not just for those who are here when the
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Lord returns and all that will accompany that, but that this applies even to the believer today, whether the
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Lord returns in five years or in 500 years. And so what
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I want us to do now is this, to look at verses 5 through 13 and to unpack at least four exhortations that I want to bring from the text.
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Exhortations that it does not matter when or where you live. It doesn't matter if you're a disciple with Christ then or a disciple in Christ today.
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And the first three are imperatives, the last being an indicative, and I'll show us how we're going to get there.
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So let's read verses 5 through 6 first. It says this, And Jesus began to say to them,
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See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name saying, I am he, and they will lead many astray.
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The first exhortation that we find in this text is this, Beware, beware false teachers and false messiahs.
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Beware false teachers and false messiahs. Mark tells us that Christ began what has become known as the
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Olivet Discourse with this word, see. Now what would have been interesting is that Christ and his disciples were at the very top of the
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Mount of Olives, likely 300 feet above the city of Jerusalem.
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And from their vantage point, assuming they were able to see the temple, they would have been able to see directly into the east doors and into the sanctuary of the temple.
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And Christ says here, see. It's the same word that's going to pop up at least a couple of times in our study today.
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And it means more than a mere passive observation. This word could be translated as beware.
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If our brother Lowell was here today in his King James, it would have translated, be translated, take heed.
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It's a call to be alert, to be awake, to see what is coming. Christ begins speaking about the coming days and he issues a warning to his disciples.
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There are going to be people, those who will try to lead you astray. Many of them will come in the name of Christ.
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Some, our Lord tells us, will even claim to be Jesus Christ himself. In fact, in verse six, if we look at that closely for a moment, many will come in my name saying,
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I am he. Now in that initial, or in the original Greek manuscripts, it actually omits the word he and just reads,
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I am. Many people are going to come and say, I am. They're going to acknowledge the divinity of Christ, the deity of Christ, that Christ himself is
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God. But they themselves are going to slot themselves next to Christ and to take some of his glory.
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They will acknowledge Christ as God even as they exalt themselves. And they will use, as we see here, biblical language.
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They will use all the right words. They will appear to have at least some of the right theology.
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They will subtly, or not so subtly, magnify themselves over and above Christ.
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And history is replete with this kind of example, with exactly this.
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It wasn't even ten years after Christ spoke these words that a Jewish man named
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Theodos arose and claimed to be the Messiah. He and his followers attested to his ability to part the
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Jordan River. His brief ministry was accompanied by signs and wonders. Josephus tells us that he led many people astray after himself.
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A few years after that, there was a magician from Egypt who came into Israel. And he himself did many signs and wonders claiming to be the
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Messiah. And he led many astray after himself. In the second century, a man named
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Simon Bar Kokhba claimed to be the Messiah. He led the Jews in a bloody revolt.
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And he said to any Christian that would not follow him as the Messiah, if they were not to follow him, they were to die.
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And he would put them to death. Eventually, he led all of his followers to the grave.
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And I would suggest, to hell. I previously shared a bit of history about this already.
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But it wasn't just in the first century or in the first couple of centuries after Christ.
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But even today, people are going to come to you and they're going to say, the Christ has come.
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He has come already. Maybe you've been sitting at home and you've had a knock or a ring on your door.
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And a couple of people that you think maybe are Jehovah's Witnesses or maybe are Mormons at your front door.
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They lack the name tag though. And they come to the door and they say, have you heard of God the
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Mother? The Church of God World Mission Society. If someone ever comes to you talking about God the
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Mother, that's where they're from. The Church of God World Mission Society. And what they would teach is this.
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That in the early 1900s, Christ did come back. He came back as a
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South Korean man named Unsung Hong. And he lived for a number of years before he died again in 1985.
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But before he died in 1985, he appointed a woman who is now God the Mother, Zangil Ja.
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She's still alive. And people travel to South Korea every year.
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Like Muslims to Mecca on pilgrimage to worship at her feet.
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Unsung Hong, even though he's dead, is regarded as Jesus Christ and as God and as the
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Holy Spirit. It's a strange kind of Trinitarian theology already. And then this Zangil Ja, she's believed to be the true fulfillment of every prophecy.
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If you remember when Justin Trudeau answered that question in Edmonton about mankind, and he said people kind, that was in reference to a question that was actually asked by a member of the
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Church of God, World Mission Society, speaking about the importance of women and trying to lend itself to the worship of God the
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Mother. Now that might sound far -fetched. It might sound like a tall tale, but the
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World Mission Society has 3 .3 million members in 175 countries.
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People who live to worship God the Mother. And we might think that we would never fall into that kind of trap, would we?
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But we need to recognize, I think, that if Christ issues this warning, it is because there is a legitimate risk.
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And it might not be something as gross as a Korean man coming back as the
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Lord Jesus and seeking the worship of humanity. Maybe it's a far greater perversion of the gospel that is far more subtle.
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This kind of teaching comes from those who are charismatic. They might claim to have signs and wonders to accompany their words.
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They might major on politics. They might major on eschatology. They might gain a big following.
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They might grow like a wave before it reaches the shore and breaks on the rocks.
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But like fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this teaching, at first glance, it looks good.
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It's delight to the eyes. It's desirable to make one wise. But make no mistake, it leads to death.
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And see this with me. People do not follow false teaching and false messiahs because they are gullible or unintelligent.
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In fact, we see that it's to the contrary often. But they fall into these traps because they do not know the scriptures.
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They do not have a rich and an intimate and a nuanced understanding of the word of God.
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Maybe some of you fall into that category today. I'm not sure. The single greatest risk factor that leads many to go astray is this.
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It is biblical illiteracy. And pop culture Christianity today is ripe for the taking.
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Hosea 4 .6 says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. To go back to Mark 13 and verse 6, the same language that we see in this verse is some of the same language that we see in Proverbs 16 .25.
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It says, There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
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And it's somewhat reminiscent of the adulterous woman in Proverbs 7.
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Perhaps you remember this. It's written to the young man. It says, She dresses seductively. She makes you feel important.
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She makes you feel safe. Her husband's out of town. She entices you with her perfume.
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Proverbs 7 .21, With much seductive speech, she persuades him. With her smooth talk, she compels him.
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All that once he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver.
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As a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life.
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There are people in this world at this very moment and forces alive in this world at this very moment that would, if they could, lead you astray.
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And let me ask you, are you equipped to encounter false teaching? Are you mature and wise in the scriptures?
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Maybe not someone who comes to you and says that they're Jesus, but maybe someone who has a thought about the
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Trinity or the incarnation or the nature of the atonement. Could you withstand that?
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Or are you a perpetual babe in Christ? Are you always being fed but never growing?
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Is it the case that you ought to be a teacher by now, but you're still living on spiritual milk?
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So many people who are so proud and arrogant on this topic are so susceptible to false teaching because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
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Hebrews 5 .13 says, Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child.
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But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
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Are you ready to distinguish good from evil? Next in verses 7 and 8, it says,
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And when you hear of wars and of rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet.
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For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places.
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There will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. So the second exhortation that I want to give you is this.
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Fear not, fear not the birth pains.
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In verses 7 and 8, Christ tells his disciples that wars are coming, even rumors of wars.
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Now isn't that an interesting thing? I remember as a new believer thinking, what is the difference between a war and a rumor of war?
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Well, if you've been awake over the last couple of years and seen the way that wars are reported on and the rumors of wars are reported on and the way that media treats these kinds of things,
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I think the statement is true that is often quoted, the first casualty of war is the truth. So the
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Lord says there are going to be wars. There's going to be uncertainty about these wars. He says also that there will be earthquakes and famines.
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Luke includes in his description pestilence or deadly disease. And this was certainly the case leading up to the fall of Jerusalem.
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And it will occur and escalate again until the day that Christ finally returns.
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So leading up to the destruction of the temple, there were a number of events that fit this description.
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In AD 40, and this is really interesting if you want, as we get into next week and the abomination of desolation and from a realized eschatology standpoint, in AD 40, the emperor
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Caligula, some of you have probably heard of Caligula. Kids, you might find this really interesting, maybe a little bit disturbing that Caligula was a bit crazy and he wanted to appoint his horse as his priest.
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He died before he could, but it was even his intent to have his horse serve as one of his senators.
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As he led Rome. The emperor Caligula took a statue of himself and put it in the temple to be worshipped and venerated by the
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Jews. That itself almost caused a war right then and there. And then it was in the years that followed that this continued to escalate eventually until AD 66 during the great revolt of the
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Jews, which eventually led to the fall of Jerusalem itself. In AD 46, we began to see the history of Israel intersect with Biblical redemptive history in the book of Acts.
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In AD 46, Israel experienced a severe famine that even appears to be in the
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Biblical storyline. Not it appears to be, it is in the Biblical storyline. In Acts 11, 27, it says,
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Now in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch and one of them named Agabus and Agabus stood and foretold by the spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world.
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Luke here in parenthesis says, This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.
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And they did so sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. And so we see we have wars, rumors of wars.
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We have famine. In AD 61, in Phrygia, there was a massive earthquake that destroyed the city.
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In AD 63, Pompeii began to shake and it shook until 79
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AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the city. In all of these,
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Christ commands his disciples, this is interesting, Do not be alarmed.
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Do not be afraid. Do not be troubled. Now Christ could have commanded anything in the face of that.
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That there's going to be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and famines and deadly disease. But what a wonderful, what a sweet, what a merciful command in the midst of trials.
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Christ who was tempted in all things and yet without sin. Christ who knows our every weakness issues this kind of imperative.
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Christ could have commanded us to take up arms. He could have commanded us to storm the city gates, to gird up our loins, brothers, and fight.
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But instead here he commands us to rest in him. To trust in him.
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To not be anxious but to find our peace in him. And how many of us today in the uncertainty of the world that we live in need to hear that command?
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Do not be alarmed. Do not be frightened. Rest in me.
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As this age draws to a close and the intensity and the frequency of troubles increase, we're not to be afraid.
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We're not to be found building our bunkers in the Alaskan wilderness and storing food underground.
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We're not to be found fretting and seeking to preserve our lives. But we're to be found resting in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. I've heard it said, I think it's true, that there are over 365 commands in Scripture not to be afraid.
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And I think if you were to go through that, you'd find that there are far more than that. That's one command not to worry for every day of the year.
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And God means it to not be afraid. Philippians 4, 6 and 7.
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We know that, don't we? Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
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And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
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John 14, 27. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.
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Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid. And what a powerful witness dear brothers and sisters is a fearless life in the midst of a chaotic world.
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Whether it's the end of times or it just feels like the end of times.
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What a wonderful witness it is to have a hope and a trust that is not rooted in circumstances but that is rooted in the perfect sovereign will of God.
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There was such a story such a witness that resulted in the saving of the
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Wesley brothers. You may have heard of John and Charles Wesley when we sing
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And can it be that I should gain an interest in my Savior's blood. That was written by Charles Wesley.
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John Wesley was a circuit rider and an open air preacher. And it was on January 25, 1736 that John Wesley was on a ship somewhere between England and North America on the
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Atlantic Ocean when it was hit with a massive storm. And later
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Wesley wrote this. He said at 7pm I went to the Germans.
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Now these were German Moravian Christians. And he said I had long observed the great seriousness of their behavior.
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Of their humility. They had given a continual proof by serving by performing those servile offices for the other passengers.
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And so these German Moravians were willing to do what none of the other passengers were willing to do.
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Maybe it was throwing the filthy buckets overboard or cleaning particular parts of the ship.
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And he said that when he would inquire about this they would say it was good for their proud hearts.
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And their loving Savior had done more for them. And there was one more opportunity he said that showed that they had been delivered from the spirit of fear.
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While they were on the ship and the ship began to rock and storm they were in the ship singing psalms together.
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And he says this. While the passengers met to sing a hymn the sea broke over.
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It split the mainsail in pieces. It covered the ship and poured in between the decks as if the great deep had already swallowed us up.
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A terrible screaming began among the English. But the
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Germans calmly sung on. I asked one of them afterward
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I love this language was you not afraid? He answered I thank
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God, no. I asked but were not your children and your women afraid?
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He replied mildly no, our women and children are not afraid to die.
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Wesley wrote then from them I went to their crying trembling
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English neighbors and pointed out to them the difference between them and the
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Germans in the hour of trial. Between him that feareth God and him that feareth him not.
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And then he writes this was the most glorious day which I had ever seen.
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To see someone who isn't afraid of the wind and the waves and the world and what man can do to the body but to be afraid of him who has power over the soul.
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Who can take both life and soul together. A fear of God that puts away all fear of man and puts away all fear of death.
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What a powerful witness dear saints that could be in our own lives. Proverbs 21 8 says the wicked flee when no one pursues but the righteous are bold as a lion.
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And how are you as a Christian to be as bold as a lion? We're bold as lions for a reason.
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Not because we're dull and we don't recognize the hazards around us but because of what
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Christ says in verse 8. There will be famines yes but these are the beginning of the birth pains.
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While these trials might seem hard we know what comes after the birth pains. A new life.
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A new life of inestimable joy. Look forward looking forward to the birth and the consummation of Christ's kingdom on earth.
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And so dear brothers and sisters beware of false teachers. We're not to fear the birth pains.
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These momentary and light afflictions that produce in us an eternal weight in glory. And thirdly we're to prepare for persecution.
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Verse 9 reads like this but be on guard for they will deliver you over to councils and you will be beaten in synagogues and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake to bear witness before them.
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And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say but say whatever is given to you in that hour.
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For it is not you who speak but the Holy Spirit. And brother will deliver brother over to death and the father his child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.
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Here Mark uses that same word from our first section when he says see see that no one leads you astray that same word
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Greek word blepo be on guard. And what he means here is be clear in your own minds.
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Persecution is going to come. I think it's safe to say Christianity is the good life but it's not the easy life.
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The way is narrow. The road is hard. One commentator says faithfulness does not consist in forecasting the future and in determining preemptive responses but rather in trusting that God will give you grace to complete your service in his name and indeed will even speak through you and your deepest need.
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Scripture is so full of examples I wrestled with which ones to choose but 2
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Timothy 3 .12 Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
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Perhaps you've heard me say this before if you're not being persecuted by anyone are you living a godly life?
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If everyone is a fan of you and everyone at work gets along with you and no one is bothered by your manner of living are you living as a
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Christian? Matthew 5 .10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
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Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Christ even says in John 16 .2 They will put you out of the synagogue indeed the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.
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And that's what we see that following this the book of Acts is a living depiction of just that.
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Of those who are killed and those who are imprisoned and those who are shipwrecked leading up to AD 70 certainly but then beyond.
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And what hope dear brothers and sisters if we are suffering in this world for righteousness sake that we are not outside of the will of God but are in fact perfectly within the center of God's will and within that which
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Christ has spoken. That when we serve him and we live for him and we don't give in to the lying or the scandalous conversations or whatever it is that we are invited into in the world and our friends of old slander us.
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So be it. If it be in the path of righteousness to Christ. And we need to be ready.
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We need to be prepared for this. Prepared to suffer. I heard a story and forgive me if I've shared this before I don't believe
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I have of a woman I believe I have shared that I used to love reading persecution literature.
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Maybe that comes out a little bit in my preaching. But as a new believer I got one okay
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Christian book and my wife had a number of books. The book it wasn't
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Fox's Book of the Martyrs but it was the DC Talk it was the cool kids version the youth group version of the
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Book of the Martyrs. And so that was the second Christian book I ever read. It was the stories of persecution.
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And I once read the story of a woman who in her own country I believe she was in Eastern Europe she saw the tides of the culture were changing.
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And she knew that at some point persecution was coming. And so what she said is I better begin to prepare myself for this.
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She felt that she was too soft for persecution. And I don't recommend this necessarily but if you do it let me know how it goes.
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But she said well I need to get used to eating subpar food. And so she began garbage picking and she would eat food from the dumpsters to acquaint herself with eating food that was not very good.
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And not only that but she took to it she said they're going to take my Bible away. I need to memorize as much of the
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Bible as I possibly can. And so she memorized I believe it was somewhere over 100 chapters of scripture.
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And so this woman on literally a diet of garbage and scripture prepared herself for persecution.
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And because she saw the trouble coming the trouble did in fact come.
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And when it came she was arrested and she was imprisoned. But that woman was able to read the
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Bible from memory and to read the Bible to her fellow prisoners from memory because she was prepared for persecution.
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And what a difficult thing it will be when they call upon us and try us in their councils.
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But see this here again we're not to be anxious beforehand but to trust to trust
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Christ to trust the Holy Spirit who will give us what we are to speak in that moment.
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One man says about this where is that quote here loyalty to Christ will be loathsome and odious to the world and believers will be hated.
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He says one recalls Tacitus an ancient Roman who said that Christians are a class hated for their abominations.
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We will be hated. We will be called cannibals. We will be called every filthy and vile name under the sun.
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But we must be content that we are suffering with and for Christ. And then lastly in verse 13 we've seen three imperatives up to this point.
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Beware of false teachers. To not fear the birth pains but to be at peace. To prepare for persecution.
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And now here is a bit of an indicative rather than an imperative that we are to we are to endure to the end endure to the end as a result of our salvation.
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Verse 13 And you will be hated by all for my name's sake but the one who endures to the end will be saved.
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Now this is a bit of a mixed bag here but this is an imperative and an indicative that we are called to endure to persevere to endure all of these things but also the indicative is this that those who endure to the end will be saved and scripture teaches us that those who are saved will endure to the end.
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A true believer will endure. Philippians 1 verse 6 says this and I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
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John chapter 10 and verse 28 I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
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Those who do endure endure because God preserves us by his power and our salvation cannot be lost but just as God uses means for all of these things he uses means even for our endurance and we see that in 1st
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Peter 1 verses 3 and 5 he says this Blessed be the God and Father of our
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Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and here it is to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled unfading kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.
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How do we endure? To the end when we encounter wars and rumors of wars and various trials and persecutions and all of these things that assail us at every hour of the day
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Hebrews chapter 1 or chapter 12 says this Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
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The way that the Christian endures the way that the Christian perseveres isn't by pure force of will but as Peter says in 1
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Peter 1 it is by faith in Christ it is by looking to Christ as the world literally and figuratively goes to hell it is by keeping our gaze on the
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Lord Jesus Christ that he is our righteousness he is our strength he is our hope he is our eternal life that is how we endure and for some in this room if I can be so bold you're not even at the endure stage yet you're at the believe stage before you can endure you must believe before you can persevere you must look to Christ for righteousness and salvation now and there's one name we're saying this on the avenue this week there's one name given under heaven by which man must be saved it's not your name it's not your church's name it's not your
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Christian parent's name it's not your relative's name it's the name Jesus Christ I stood on the box this week we've been street preaching for the last couple of months and there was a woman on the avenue shouting at me my mother was a scholar she was a
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Christian scholar and she was adamant that all people are good and that she's good and that she's going to heaven because she's good and I never like to be rude to those kind of people
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I want to be gracious I want the message to be offensive but as for me
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I want to add no offense to that gospel and I said to the woman I said God does not have grandchildren
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He has children and you must believe in Jesus Christ because the wages of sin is death and you deserve that death but while we were still sinners
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Christ died for the ungodly and so all of us as believers that is our hope if you're not a believer in this room that must be your hope before you endure before you prepare for persecution prepare to be saved and that is through Christ alone
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Edwards writes the hour has come for believers to bear the cross of which
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Christ spoke they bear the cross by standing firm to the end the life of faith is an exemption is not an exemption from adversity but a reliance on the promise of God to bear witness to the gospel in adversity and to be saved for eternal life through it so I'll finish with 1
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Corinthians 15 58 what I began with therefore beloved brothers be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the