FBC Daily Devotional – August 13, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Friday to you. Hope your week has gone well and you're looking forward to the weekend.

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And speaking of the weekend, Sunday is coming and hope that you can join us at our church building on the

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Lord's Day for our worship services together. If not, I hope you can join us on live stream at 1030

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Sunday morning. Also do the adult Bible study at 930 and then we have an evening service at six o 'clock.

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So you can join in at any of those times via live stream if you can't join us in person.

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But anyway, in today's reading, we're in Luke chapter 21 and Jesus is, he's presented with a question about the future.

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They're coming out, Jesus and the disciples are coming out of the temple complex there in Jerusalem, beautiful structure undoubtedly.

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And some of the disciples are commenting on how beautiful these buildings are and so forth. And Jesus says, you know, there's a time coming when all these stones are going to be a pile of rubble.

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And the disciples are curious about this and of course concerned.

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They say, well, when's this going to happen? What's, when's this going to happen? They're perplexed.

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And Jesus gives them somewhat obscure answers. He gives them answers about, about the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

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And that happened in AD 70. The very things that Jesus talked about, they were invaded and the temple complex was destroyed and it's never been rebuilt.

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The Jewish temple complex never been rebuilt and lay in rubble for years and years and years and years.

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So that very thing happened. But in the course of that description of the perilous time that was coming, he kind of fast forward to the time of the second coming, his

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Jesus return. And this is what he says. He says, there'll be signs in the sun and the moon and in the stars on the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring men's hearts, failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

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It says, then they will see the son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. He says, now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near.

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Now when is this going to happen? I don't know. We don't know. Jesus never tells us.

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He never gives a specific time, never even gives us a general enough time to be able to say, oh, we know it's going to be in the next 12 months.

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And throughout the last couple thousand years, there have been cycles in our world history that have led believers to think, you know,

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Jesus is coming. He's coming. Look, this is what's happening. And this is what's happening. And I think we're in one of those cycles right now when there's a lot of fear and anxiety and there's a lot of stuff going on globally with climatic events and so forth and so on.

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It's leading a lot of people to think, you know, Jesus could be coming at any moment. Well, the fact is Jesus could come at any time.

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And it's really not our place to determine the specific time that he does.

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But what we can say from what Jesus says earlier in this dialogue with his disciples is that the time until he comes is going to be a time of difficulty for God's people, for the followers of Jesus.

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I mean, I remember as a kid, a song I think was Lynn Anderson, country singer, sang,

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I never promised you a rose garden. I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden.

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There's going to be a little rain sometime or something like that. And pardon the illustration there.

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But this is what it reminds me of. Jesus never promised us a bed of roses. He never promised us a rose garden.

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He did promise us that there would be plenty of thorns along the way and that God's people would know and experience some opposition as we journey through this life of faithfulness in following Jesus.

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And that's the point that he's trying to make. We need to be faithful, even if it's painful, even if it costs us our life.

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We need to be loyal to him. He's given us his life. He's given his life for us.

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And may he help us to be true. May he help us to be faithful to him, even to the very end.

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So I don't know where you are in your walk with Christ, and I don't know what kind of angst you might be feeling.

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I don't even know what part of the world you're in right now. This is going out on the Internet. There could be people watching this in countries where they have to cower in fear lest it be found out they're watching a

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Christian podcast. And on the other hand, here we are in the

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United States and we are in relative peace in this regard. I don't particularly fear,

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I don't really fear that all of a sudden the authorities are going to come in, break down the door and arrest me for issuing forth this broadcast.

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I don't have to fear that. But whatever state we're in, whatever level of opposition or feeling of constraint for our

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Christian faith, may we be resolved to be faithful. May we be determined to be loyal followers of Jesus.

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He is worthy of it. And he is coming soon. He is coming soon. Soon may be a hundred years from now, may be a millennium from now.

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It may be a hundred days from now. I don't know. But until that time, let's be faithful.

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Our Father and our God, while we don't know with any degree of certainty the timing of the

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Lord's return, we can be faithful until he comes. Help us by your grace to be just that.

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And we ask in Jesus' name, Amen. All right. Hey, have a good rest of your