The Beginning of the End

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. The announcements.

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So, you're new here. On the way in, you could have gotten one of these documents here.

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I call it a worship folder. Has everything that we're talking about here, but it's in a hard copy.

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If you like the hard copy, this is your place. Inside, you'll find a connection card. Connection card is a way for you to connect with us, give us your information, fill us out, turn it in at the welcome table in the lobby.

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You'll get a free t -shirt. Also included in there is the envelope to give. We don't pass an offering plate, so if you'd like to give, use that.

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Also, drop that off at the welcome table. We have a book that Don's recommending that I think is topical.

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It is By Nine Marks, a reputable organization. Not very big, a few pages here.

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It says, how can I love church members with different politics? So, it is certainly topical.

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We recommend it. There's a suggested donation of $5. There'll be an envelope that you can do it that way. Also, what's going on is we have a family meeting tonight.

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If you call Recast your church home, come tonight at seven o 'clock and see what's going on in terms of business at Recast.

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We also have an announcement that came out earlier this week regarding this format. So, we've been at two services.

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We're gonna go to one service beginning March 7th. If you'd like to know more details about why that change is being made, check out the video that we put out.

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But that'll be one service at 10 .30 a .m. Everything else going on, you can find out at recastchurch .com.

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That's our website. We put everything there. And lastly, there is a marriage retreat for anybody that wants to come.

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There's a sign up in the lobby. If you're interested, there's more details there. All right, thank you guys. See ya.

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Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here. And it's a joy to gather together.

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For those of you that are joining us on the live stream, glad that you're able to be a part of this through technology. And I really mean it.

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I mean it when I say I'm glad to gather together. I hope you enjoy the gathering together of God's people.

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For years, I've stood up here and said that we're a people who need each other. And the past 12 months have proved that to be true.

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It has proved that to be true in my life. I hope it has in your life as well. And so, I hope that this morning is a morning of gladness and rejoicing for all of us in the gathering.

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My prayer is that we would all encounter God through his word and in worship this morning. And I also pray that we feel a little less alone.

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A little less alone because we gather together. As we get a chance to look around, and I encourage you to look around and see that you are not alone.

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How many of you would admit that during the course of your week, sometimes it just feels like you're out there kind of slogging through it on your own?

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Do you know what I'm talking about? Where I just, it's like, I feel like maybe I'm the only Christian within 10 miles of where I'm at right now.

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Like, it just feels that way at times. And so, hopefully this is an anchor point for you to be able to look around and reflect and say there are others who think the thoughts that I think, who value

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Christ, who love him and wanna honor him. And so, let that be that for you this morning. I pray that that's the case.

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Others are seeking to grow in faith, grow in community, grow in service as well. This morning's gonna start off as almost the beginning of a series within a series.

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Now, the big picture series of what we're doing is we're going through the book of Matthew. I actually started that years ago, and then

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I took a break here and there to do other series in between and stuff. And so, Matthew is,

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I've picked that up over the holidays, it's seasons and times. This is probably the longest consecutive chunk of the book of Matthew that I've taken off in a while.

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And the reason I call this a series within a series is that although we're marching through the book of Matthew, we get into these sections that are kind of thematic.

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So, this section that begins in chapter 24 and goes through the end of chapter 25 is, has its own title.

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A lot of theologians and a lot of biblical scholars will call this the Olivet Discourse. Now, you don't need to know that, but it's one primary teaching that was given by Jesus, and it's named after the location, the geography where it was given.

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It was given on the Mount of Olives, just outside of Jerusalem. On the east side, there's a large hill that's still there today.

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And we know the location because the text tells us where he sat down and taught on these things. That's how it got its name, the

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Olivet Discourse. But it's interesting in what it focuses on. Now, I'm just curious, how many of you have ever really been interested in end times?

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Like, does that ever grab your attention? Back in the, I remember being in high, I was in high school in the 80s, and my pastor was going through a series on the end times.

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I think that basically, in the late 80s or early 90s, it was basically pastoral malpractice to not preach on end times.

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Anybody with me? If you were in a church in the 80s or 90s, you heard a message about, a series about the end times.

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Anybody with me on that? Did you guys hear that stuff? So it's really a common thing. And it's something that I think all of us are curious about, all of us have questions about.

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And this passage in this subject has received a lot of scrutiny and a lot of interest over the years.

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By the way, these passages that I'm gonna be preaching on over the next several weeks in this

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Olivet Discourse are open to a vast array of interpretations. Now, it's gonna be tricky for us to navigate what is a very complex teaching from Jesus.

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And some of you may have heard some of these words. Raise your hand if you've heard of pre -tribulational or mid -tribulational or post -tribulational.

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Those are views, those are big words that basically, at the end of the day, say where is the return of Christ in relationship to a seven -year period of great tribulation that's gonna come upon the planet.

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And then there's, and then that's not even to get into the views of the millennium, where there's 1 ,000 years that's predicted by the book of Revelation, where Jesus is going to literally reign for 1 ,000 years on Earth and all of that stuff, and there's various views on that.

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And so these passages that we're gonna be talking about come into all of those kinds of thoughts. We're not gonna necessarily throw out those theological terms, but we're definitely gonna be working through this text.

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And as we look at this passage this morning, and as we move into this discourse about the end times, it will hopefully snap into focus that these teachings do not only have practical application for some future generation that's going to be here at the return of Jesus.

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As if this is kind of like, put this, put these two chapters behind glass and break if the rapture happens so that you understand it better.

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Like it's not, that's not the way that this is meant to be used. It's not, like it's written, and in case, you know, you wake up one morning, and your spouse is gone, and everybody from your church is gone, and you're like, oh, okay,

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I better look at Matthew 24 and 25 to figure this stuff out. Time to read the book of Revelation because I've been left behind, or whatever.

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That's not the picture that we're supposed to have, not the attitude we're supposed to have towards these texts. Jesus is seeking to talk to his followers about how we live in the here and now in light of his future return at the end of the world.

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Now, he's definitely gonna give us some insight about the types of things that are gonna be going on at that end time, but by and large, he's not as concerned about giving us a when as much as a how to live in the waiting time.

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And hopefully you get that from this message. So if you're not already there, open your Bibles to Matthew 24, verses one through eight.

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Again, Matthew 24, one through eight. Again, recast as I say every week, this is God's holy and precious word.

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A powerful word, a word that desires to transform and change our lives, to get into us in a way that we live differently because we've encountered it.

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So Matthew 24, one through eight. Jesus left the temple when it was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple.

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But he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

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As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us, when will these things be?

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And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray, for many will come in my name saying,

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I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

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See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place. But the end is not yet, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

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And there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word that clarifies for us.

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We have a written word that's foundational, that we can keep coming back to time and time again.

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A written word that clarifies things for us and that identifies for us exactly what you desired to communicate.

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Father, I pray that we would take on your word and that it would transform and change the way that we live and move and think about these catastrophes and difficulties that come upon our lives and wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and famines and pandemics and all of this,

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Father. There's so much practicality in these words of Christ as we think about the things that we've lived through and the things that we've endured.

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And these things are just the beginning of the birth pains of a kingdom that is coming, a kingdom that is being birthed through travail, through difficulty, through tragedy and all the problems that we see around us.

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And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to think rightly, that you would speak through me with accuracy and with clarity and with passion and zeal this morning, that you would help us to listen and be attentive to your

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Holy Spirit and that you would transform us to a person because we encounter you through your word this morning in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, so I encourage you to get comfortable as I do every Sunday. You can get more caffeine back there in the form of coffee or tea.

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There's juice back there. There's donuts. And then make sure that you keep your place in Matthew 24, one through eight.

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Keep that on your lap so you can follow it as we walk through this passage verse by verse. That's our intention every week, to make the word clear what

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God desires of us as a result of coming in contact with his word. And so, last week we saw a text where Jesus declared, this is setting some of the context so we understand what's happening here when we're reading, starting off in chapter 24.

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Last week we saw Jesus declared that he was going to depart the temple and it would be declared, the word that would describe the temple after his departure would be desolate.

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In other words, it would be devoid of the divine presence when he leaves. And now we see right off in verse one, he left.

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He departed the temple for the last time and he leads his disciples out the eastern gate of Jerusalem and up the steep slopes of the

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Mount of Olives east of the city. And if you were to go stand there today, you have a great view of the city, looking to the west, overlooking the city if you're up on the eastern slopes of the

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Mount of Olives. It's a beautiful, breathtaking thing. But the thing that would grab your attention right away is that there's a big gap, there's a big blank area in the middle of that,

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Temple Mount, it's kind of like you're up higher, you're looking down and then there's this flat pavement that is the place and the location where the temple of God used to be there.

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And that's what they see, only they don't see the absence, they actually see the glory and the beauty of the temple. They see

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Solomon's portico with all of its colonnades there and an area of shade for people to gather and other buildings and various things that are up there in that temple complex.

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And so they're climbing up this hill, there's this breathtaking view of the city, but most breathtaking of all is the temple, probably the gold of the temple on the outside shining as they're climbing this hill, this glorious and beautiful temple built by King Herod himself.

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And the disciples were obviously confused by the cryptic statements about the temple being made desolate.

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This temple, desolate, destroyed, empty, vacant, how is that possible? And so what they do as they're walking up the hill is they literally draw

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Jesus' attention to, you're talking about that temple down there, right? That glorious and beautiful structure.

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And according to Mark's account, Mark gives us a little bit more detail than Matthew does here. So in Mark's account of this exact same event, he says that one of the disciples blurted out, look teacher, what wonderful stones and wonderful buildings.

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They're drawing attention to the beauty and the majesty of this center of the worship of Jehovah, of God himself.

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And this brings us to our outline for the message this morning. The first movement in the text is a huge shift is coming.

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Jesus predicts to their vantage point a huge shift that is coming. Now, we live within, on the other side of the shift that we're gonna be talking about.

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But in verses one and two, that's what he's interested in. And then verses four and five is the second point. We will be tempted to follow false saviors.

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The third point is we will be tempted to panic. And the fourth is Jesus explaining that the kingdom is in active labor.

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So those are the four movements, the four points of the text. And let's start off with the first one. Let's just go in order.

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Let's start with Jesus identifying that a huge shift is coming. Now, he's talking to his followers. They're drawing attention to the beauty of the temple.

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And in verse two, he treats their observation. They're literally trying to draw Jesus into a discussion, look at the glory and the beauty of that which you just said is gonna be left desolate.

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Look at this beauty. And he treats it as though it's a question that needs an answer.

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And he answered them. The reason is not that it was necessarily a question, but they had a question in their heart.

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There is no doubt in my mind that they actually wanted a response from him.

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What they're really asking without asking directly is how in the world could all of that beauty, how in the world could those giant, massive stones and all of that gold and all of that worship of God, how could that center of worship be left desolate?

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Jesus, give us more detail. We don't get it. What cataclysmic ruin could cause such a beautiful place to be vacated by Almighty God, the center of their idea of worship.

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And I wanna point out that a threat against this building during this time was tantamount to a threat against the

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Jewish people themselves. It was treasonous to talk about the destruction of that temple.

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And yet as they stand there gazing down at the beauty of their religious world, Jesus blurts out a stunning, shocking, earth -shifting kind of statement.

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He says, I tell you the truth, not a single stone of those buildings will remain on top of one another.

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Those buildings will all be toppled. That beauty that you see down there in the valley, all gone, washed away.

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Not a stone on top of stone. And then he turns and continues walking up the hill.

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How many of you just realized the complete and utter bomb he's just dropped on their world? Not just desolate, destroyed he now clarifies.

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Completely obliterated. Not a stone left on stone. By the way, a fulfilled prophecy in 70

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AD. It actually comes to pass just like Jesus says it's going to. He's about 40 years prior to that event predicting its downfall, its demise.

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So they turn to finish the walk to the top of the hill where he sat down, taking the posture of a teacher, and they approach him to have a private lesson with their master to really mine the depths of what in the world he's just said.

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And I would suggest to you that regardless of how far they had to walk before he sat down on the summit of that hill, all of their minds must have been racing.

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Whether that was a minute or 20 minutes or 30 minutes, their mind is racing. The destruction of this temple.

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The temple of God destroyed. The center of Jewish religious life demolished.

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How can this be? I imagine they're just like, what did he just say? This is just mind boggling.

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What he tells them here is that there is a gigantic, massive, religious, huge shift that is coming.

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A shift that we don't feel fully because we haven't been Jews. But if you had been raised as a

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Jew during this time, Jesus's prediction that this temple was gonna be obliterated would have just been mind -bending. Like, he's got this wrong.

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Finally we caught him in something that he's got wrong. Because God will not go without a temple. God will not be dishonored in that way.

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There's no way that that temple is gonna be thrown down. So that huge shift that he's predicting is the destruction of the temple.

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Jesus told, by the way, something that's interesting that ties in with this. He told the woman at the well. A Samaritan woman, all the disciples had gone into town to get lunch and he's there alone and he asks this woman to draw water for him and she begins a conversation.

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They end up having a long conversation. But in the middle of that conversation, she gets a little bit hung up on where to worship.

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She's a Samaritan, they worship up north and they're not allowed to come down to the temple. There's a lot of animosity between the two people groups.

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And so they worship in Samaria and there's a debate over the geography and the location. So Jesus literally says, a day is coming when the geography doesn't matter anymore.

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No longer is it gonna matter whether you worship in Samaria or whether you even go down to Jerusalem to the temple and worship.

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That's gonna be a non -issue. A shift is coming soon, says Jesus, when the location of worship matters less than the manner and the heart of worship.

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And he says, people will worship him in all locations, in spirit and in truth.

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How many of you are living in that shift? You're already living in it. There's no need for a temple.

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We don't have to take a pilgrimage every year to a holy place in order to worship God. We worship him in our car, in our commute.

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We worship him in our workplace. We worship him in our families, in our houses, in our living rooms. Wherever we go, we are just hours away from the worship of God.

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Because Jesus Christ has opened that door for us. And the most important thing is that we worship him in spirit and in truth with our hearts, our minds, our emotions, everything engaged through the knowledge of him and his word and truth.

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The shift he predicted to his followers and to the woman at the well came with the destruction of the temple about 40 years after he declared this, when the

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Romans came in, set siege to Jerusalem, smoked them out in what may very well be one of the most heinous and dark sieges ever recorded in human history.

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I mean, some of the things that are so graphic, I won't say them up front. Some of the things that the Jews endured in that, and then the temple burned and completely all the stones thrown down there.

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And that shift was very radical. Very radical and the big movement of, if you're a student of the

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Bible, a huge thing that happened. The Jews have not been able to practice any temple services for almost 2 ,000 years.

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That a big deal? It's a huge deal religiously. And why? Well, I believe that God has permitted that because the worship of God has shifted from geography to heart.

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That's the shift that Jesus is talking about here. A shift from geography and specific location.

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By the way, you don't have to come to a church to worship God. Anybody glad for that? My hope and prayer for all of us routinely,

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I pray this, I literally pray this most Sunday mornings, and that is that you don't see what happens here as extremely significantly different from what happened yesterday or the day before.

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The glory is the gathering, right? There's something that's beautiful, there's something that's special about getting together. As I mentioned at the introduction, that we look around and we see that there are other worshipers of God.

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That he's connecting us in relationship. There's a glory in that that's different than me, you know, singing in the shower or in my car or whatever.

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There's differences here than there is there. And at the same time, there's a glory to being able to just worship

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God wherever you are. Anybody with me on that? There's a beauty to that. He's brought us to heart, not to location and geography.

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So before we dive into our second point, I want you to notice that the disciples initiated this long discourse.

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Jesus sits down, again, assuming the posture, he's open to teaching them by sitting down in this way.

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And there's kind of a nature to that. But the disciples initiated the discourse with three questions in verse three.

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They ask the question that all of us always ask. When I asked you to raise your hand and say if you've ever been interested in end times, how many of you, really the interest comes down to one word question, when?

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How many of you would like the answer to that? When? That's the first question they ask.

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When will all these things happen? They're picking their jaws up off the ground. You said the temple's gonna be destroyed, when?

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And what will be the sign of your return? Now, that's an interesting question if you don't take into account, you have to take into account last week's context where he said,

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I am departing the temple and it's gonna be left desolate until I return and people are shouting, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

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Lord. So he said, I'm going to return. That until word was in the end of our text last week.

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So what will be the sign of your return and what will be the sign of the end of the age? Now, the way that they were conceiving of this is that the age, certainly if the temple's gonna be destroyed and Jesus is gonna return, he's the king and they already understand him as Messiah and so what does it mean, the end of the age?

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Well, they're looking forward to a new kingdom. They're expecting him to set up a new kingdom and usher in a new age and so that's the nature of the question.

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What will be the sign that you're setting it all up brand new, that you're starting over again? And in context,

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I believe that these questions are in rapid succession because they come from a common place in the hearts of the disciples.

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You see, the disciples are collapsing these questions together because in their minds, they naturally belong together.

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There's a logical connection to these things. In other words, to the Jews, the destruction of the temple and the return of Jesus to Jerusalem and the end of the age would all be basically a simultaneous event.

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How could they have worship without a temple? In their minds, they're thinking, okay, everything is on its head at that point.

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Certainly, Jesus is gonna start something brand new at that point and Jesus had just predicted that he would reenter

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Jerusalem to the cries of blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord and they obviously believed that all of that would usher in the end of the age and so they're asking these questions all kind of as one question at the end of the day.

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So throughout the next couple of chapters, Jesus will interweave his answers to these questions and what can sometimes be, to our minds, confusing from the vantage point of 2 ,000 years later.

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He will give them, he will declare some signs in this text that speak directly to them discussing the signs about the destruction of the temple that will happen 40 years in the future from them, still nearly 2 ,000 years ago to us, but he's gonna talk about some of the signs that will happen of that to prepare them, but he will also strongly caution them about an overemphasis, really addressing us too, not having an overemphasis on the question when and Jesus will address the end of time and the destruction of the temple and his return, which we know, and here's the kicker in the rest of this text as we're gonna be going through it over the coming weeks, we know these things covered centuries of time, but he will cover them in one lecture that serves the primary purpose of preparing his followers, them and us, to live in this period of anticipation and waiting without all the answers, without all the answers to the question when.

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We are those who are waiting and as we wait, Jesus says, your anticipation, you are to live a life of anticipation, looking for and longing for the return of your

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Lord and Savior, but that anticipation can be exploited in two ways and he's cautioning us in these next two points about it.

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The first point, remember, being a huge shift is coming, that huge shift in the change of the way that worship is done, no longer in geography, but primarily in heart, and then the second point, we will be tempted to follow false saviors.

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Now, I find it very intriguing here in verses four and five, the very first thing that Jesus addresses when it comes to the end times, and you're curious about end times?

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Well, take this one on. The very first thing he addresses is stay closely connected with Jesus.

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It's the first thing that he says. So you're going, when is it gonna happen? Who's the Antichrist? What's all this, what's the sign of the mark of the beast and what's this and what's this and what's this?

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And we've got all of these questions and he says, here's the thing you need to know first, fundamental, the basis of your curiosity about end times, there's gonna be temptation to follow other saviors.

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There's gonna be a temptation to follow other messiahs. Others will rise up. When Jesus peers down the road toward the end, answering their concerns and their questions, he sees pitfalls and hurdles for his people and he's most concerned that we stay with him.

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First concern, stay with me. And so here in this text, he graciously grants us the warning in a form of a command.

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See that no one leads you, my followers, astray. What he says here is that many will come claiming to be representatives of Christ and even some declaring that they are the anointed one of God.

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That's what the word Christ means, anointed one of God or messiah. Many will be caught up in the trap of following others.

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According to verse five, he goes so far as to say, many, many will be on the wrong road following the wrong leader as we move toward the end of the age and closer to his return.

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Many will be on the wrong path following the wrong leader when he comes back. There will be a proliferation of various ways.

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There will be a proliferation of various saviors and messiahs. How many of you have seen that in your own lifetime?

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There's more now than there were 20 years ago and it just keeps rolling. This reminds me that Jesus knew the timeline.

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He knows. There have been many leaders down through the age that have claimed to come in the name of Christ.

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There are some who have claimed to speak for Christ that do not. And there are some of the more wacky who have even claimed to be

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Christ, right? This was a warning to his immediate disciples but also still stands as a warning to us.

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This is not just for them in their day and age. And here's the caution, beware of anyone who claims to come in the name of the

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Lord claiming that they have themselves the secret ways of salvation.

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And they're there, they're here. How many of you know that on the internet there's all different kinds of people who are putting forward themselves as the answer?

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All kinds of things on the internet that would push themselves forward as the way. There's all kinds of secret knowledge available for all of you on the internet.

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Secret on the internet. Did you get that? But it's available to all of us, right?

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And it's there, it's just a couple clicks away and you can know the truth. You can know the right way.

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And it's of course my way and it's for a donation of $1 ,000 today you can find out the truth.

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You hear what I'm saying? By the way, that could be misquoted. If you can cut that out of the video, I wasn't saying that about myself.

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I would suggest to you that one need not directly state I am

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Jesus to fall into the category of the ones that he's warning about.

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There are many false teachers in our day and age that would word these things quite differently, more subtly.

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Wouldn't it be great if people just came out right and said, I think I'm the answer to all of your problems?

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Because then you would know, right? Then you would have a clue. You would kind of get down to like, okay, this guy's a little bit full of himself.

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This guy is a little bit, this is a bit much. But what kind of things are said in our day and age?

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And I'm giving broad categories, I'm not pointing to any specific ministry, I'm not pointing to any particular false teacher. But things are said like, the

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Bible is good. And it would start that way. The Bible is good. But what you need is just a little bit more, and I've got that little bit more.

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Now, they might not even say that. They just would certainly imply it in the way that they teach and in the things that they give. You need to follow me to figure out what is really true.

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They are, in essence, saying, follow me and I will save you. Some would even, in our day and age, this would be the subtlety of their coming as a

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Christ. They would say things like, spirituality is just having a good feeling toward all people.

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How many of you know that that's the center point of religious commonality in our culture right now?

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Just be nice to everybody, and you're a good person, and you're okay. As long as you're loving, okay.

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Seek justice, love everyone, it's gonna be all right. There are talk shows that do that.

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There are podcasts that do that. There are internet sites that do that. There are churches that do that.

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And they are setting themselves up in opposition to the gospel of Christ, which requires repentance from sins.

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One way you can tell a false teacher, they don't like to talk about sin. They will shy away from it. Why? It's bad

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PR. Have a hard time bringing in money for the ministry convicting people.

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When you think of it this way, we live in a day and age of false teachers galore. You know what I'm talking about? False messiahs everywhere.

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People who will push themselves forward as the answer. How will we be kept from being led astray?

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It's a serious question, church. I mean, you can kind of think, well, I'm at a good church, and things are going all right, and I hope you see it as a good church.

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But let me encourage you to keep coming back to the stable word of God as the source. And I say this to you with all sincerity.

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Check on me. Check on me. You have it right there.

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If you don't, we'd like to get you a copy. Get the Bible and get it into your minds and into your hearts so that you can identify the fake when it's there.

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Rightly understood and studied for understanding, this word has the power to cut through the fog of false teachings. Have you seen it happen in your life?

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Where you believe something and the word has corrected it? Praise God when that happens. We all need that.

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Or where you've heard a preacher or a pastor or even me say something, and you're like, I'm not sure that that's what this says.

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I mean, come and talk with me, I would love to. The other thing that I would encourage you to do is you're doing it right now, and that's be engaged and involved in community.

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Theology in isolation can get dangerous. When I prepare my message, I do my own work first, and then

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I go to commentaries and I check on scholars and other people. I'm usually reading four or five commentaries on the passage that I'm preaching on this week.

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Not to, you know, jack their information, but at the end of the day to check on myself.

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At least I'd know who I'm disagreeing with if I could lay in some place different. Do you know what I'm saying? But check yourself.

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We all need that. I guess I could say check yourself before you wreck yourself, right? But make sure you've got other people in your life, and I love it.

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Just this past week I've had two or three different texts or emails from people who said, I'm reading this.

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I don't really understand it, pastor. Help me to understand it better. I love that.

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I love that. Reach out to me or Spencer, and Spencer's a great wealth of information. I mean, reach out to him and ask him questions too, and we kind of are built to live for that kind of thing.

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We enjoy answering those questions and talking through those things. Lastly, I would just encourage you, as you think through, another way to discern is to identify that any spiritual teacher that does not consistently make much of Jesus Christ is likely putting themselves forward in his place.

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If they're not talking about Jesus, they're probably holding themselves up to be the savior. And I would humbly but directly state that I believe that every religious institution has a messiah.

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Think that through. Every religious institution has a savior. Every religious institution has a messiah.

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The question that you must ask about that church, that ministry, that organization, is whether or not the

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Christ in the specific institution is named Jesus of Nazareth, and he is the very son of God.

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Beware of false messiahs. And there are plenty of them, plenty of them out there.

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The third thing is, so he's basically looking down and he's saying, beware, stay vitally connected to Jesus.

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He's talking about end times, and that's where he wants to go with this. The second thing is really cool. The second thing that he says, you wanna know who the antichrist is?

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You wanna know the mark of the beast? You wanna know all this stuff? You wanna figure it all out? No, no, let's go someplace else real quick.

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Jesus taking us somewhere else than our thoughts go. He says, no, hold on a second. Break sound before we get into any of those details.

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Second thing you need to understand, you're gonna be tempted to panic. Don't panic.

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How many of you maybe already, you're like, oh, I see where this is going. This last year, God is maybe gonna correct a little something in my heart over 2020.

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Do you see what I'm saying in here? Don't panic. Not only will we be tempted to follow false messiahs, but we will also be tempted to give into the panic of the days.

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We will be tempted to ride the peaks and the troughs of life in a fallen world. How many of you maybe just would raise your hand with me,

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I'm raising my hand too, and say, I've been a little guilty of going deeper this year into the troughs and the darkness, and then up, and then back down again, and then up, and then back down again.

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Anybody with me? Little bit wider swings than 2019? A bit? I think this past political pandemic type of year has brought this message home to me.

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And here's the thing, church. He's not denying that there's bad news. He's not saying, oh, you ride above the top because there's no such thing as pain, there's no such thing as suffering.

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We're not going Buddhist on this. It's not like, rise above all of the fray of the difficulties.

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No, he's saying, you're gonna hear bad news. You're not just gonna hear bad news, you're gonna hear really bad news. You're gonna hear news that incites you to anxiety, that incites you to panic and to alarm.

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The headlines will be dire. There will be wars and rumors of wars, says Jesus. And how many of you know that really basically at any time in human history, there's been at least one of those?

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Wars? Or if there's not a war, there's at least a rumor of one. Always.

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Always. And so he adds to this. See that you are not alarmed.

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By the way, for many of us, if we're just being honest, I mean, anybody tired of the news cycle? Some of you maybe are just shutting it off.

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And that's not the answer. The answer isn't shut it off, you're still gonna hear it. You can't isolate yourself.

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You can't shut it completely off. And I understand how some of you need to take a break from social media, some of you need to take a break from whatever news you're watching or whatever.

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But at the end of the day, he's not saying the headlines aren't the problem. Our connection with God and not being alarmed is the issue.

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I believe that this instruction, see that you are not alarmed, this command, I believe that this is one of the primary cruxes of this passage.

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He's telling his people to avoid alarm. He's thinking about the future. He's thinking about down the road and down towards the destruction of the temple, future yet for them, past for us, and then towards his return, still future for them and us, and the setting up of his kingdom.

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Future for them, future for us. And as he's talking about that, he's saying don't follow, his followers should avoid alarm.

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We ought to be an even people, not a people swinging wildly between peak and trough of every wave of history. I believe personally that the pendulum is swinging more now than it was 20 years ago, but maybe not more now than it was 100 years ago.

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Start of World War, or in the middle of World War I and moving into World War II and a really great depression in between there and people losing everything in between there.

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How many of you think that that might have been a time of some significant pendulum swings? 1918 and the flu pandemic then.

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There have been times and cycles of human history where the pendulum swings more wildly. And how many of you would just say maybe this has been like the toughest, this past year was maybe the toughest year of your life?

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Anybody? I don't think for many of us it has been. All kinds of craziness. But nothing that we've experienced in our entire lifetime has been outside of the ordinary pendulum swing of human history.

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It's all like this. And the reasons we are to remain calm is that we know that these things must take place, the text tells us.

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In other words, that's not just a placeholder just to say, oh, don't worry about it because these are the kinds of things that happen. No, when he says must take place, this is in must take place according to the plan of God.

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In other words, there's a plan and God, the good God we serve is the one that is working this plan.

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And Jesus says emphatically to not assume that every low point is the end. By the way, we always naturally do that and I've had a lot of people come up, just like back in the summer,

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I was sitting at the coffee shop outside of what's now Happy Days Cafe here in Matawan. I was sitting outside at one of those tables.

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Somebody who doesn't even attend our church that just happens to know that I'm a pastor walked up to me and started the conversation this way.

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Is this all just a sign that Jesus is coming back soon? Is this the start of a conversation with somebody out in the community?

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Like, how many of you know, have any of you thought that? Any of you thought that over this? Like is this the end, is this the time?

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Don't assume that every low point is the end. Every single trough is okay, here he comes. Don't live a life running from alarm to alarm.

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In other words, Christians are not reactionary. We are not called to a reactive life.

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We are proactive with an unashamed agenda to bring the good news into whatever the context of our day is.

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Wars, we bring the gospel like D .L. Moody and Dietrich Bonhoeffer brought the word of God and the gospel into war.

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In times of famine, we bring the gospel into famine. In times of pandemic, we bring the gospel into pandemic.

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And if we follow Christ in this, church, we may very well be found bringing the gospel on the day of his return.

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How many of you would love that? Bring in the gospel faithfully, no matter where you're at on the peaks and troughs of life.

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Our calm stability in the face of catastrophe comes from the reality that we know the one who is orchestrating a plan and he is not caught off guard by any of these swings, all of it in his hands.

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And that leads to the final point in verses seven and eight, the kingdom is an act of labor. What do we make of those peaks and troughs?

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We make of them contractions. There will be widespread, in verse seven he says, there will be widespread epic wars.

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Yes, nation will fight nation, but entire kingdoms will fight kingdoms. He's taking it up a notch.

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Yes, there will always be wars and rumors of wars, nation fighting nation, but there will be some epic humdingers of a war.

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I think that Jesus, I mean, he wasn't taken off guard by World War I and World War II where the globe was lit up on fire.

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That doesn't surprise him. These are the kinds of things that happen, epic wars, famines, earthquakes.

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In other words, there will be ample temptations to panic for us. There will be ample evidence that the world is unraveling.

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There will be civil wars, revolutions, insurrections, global wars, tsunamis on Christmas Day, holocausts, earthquakes in Haiti and all around the world, volcanic eruptions.

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There will be natural disaster, there will be man -made disaster. There will be annual signs that this could be the year of his return.

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Every year. This could be the end of the age. Do you know what I'm talking about? Every year has that.

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And Jesus says in essence here in verse eight, welcome to life on a fallen planet. That's a very loose translation of that, by the way, but all of these headlines of these tragedies, all of these signs of the times are what he likens in verse eight to rolling waves of contraction, something

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I've never experienced. I've observed, but I've never experienced. A woman doesn't enter labor with any knowledge of how many, one of the, by the way,

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I'm taking this directly from one of the commentaries that I read, this isn't unique to me, but a woman doesn't enter labor with any knowledge of how many contractions she will have before the baby arrives.

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She does not know whether it will be five contractions and then the baby arrives or 500 contractions and then the baby arrives.

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And how many of you know that's a grace to her? I don't think she'd want to count. She wouldn't want to know that in advance and that is the picture of the world.

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How many cycles of news do we need to go through? How many earthquakes will there be? How many wars?

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How many global wars? How many catastrophes? He's not giving us a number, so stop guessing.

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It's like childbirth, like labor. You don't know when it's over, but you know it'll be good when it is.

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I was there for the birth of all three of my children and as I've said before, I walked out of the hospital scared of what my wife is capable of.

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No pain meds, three very large children, and I'm the one, by the way,

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I'm the one, this is not necessarily helpful in the point of the passage, but I'm the one who almost passed out. A nurse looked at me at the birth of my second child, looked at me and said, you look pale, why don't you come sit down?

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They ushered me into a chair and gave me a Snickers bar. Well, she's just done the work and I'm over here in the chair eating a

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Snickers bar. I felt kind of fine, but she was like, you don't look fine. I was like, all right,

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Snickers, celebration. But the pains of childbirth are an intentional metaphor, a beautiful,

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I think one of the coolest things about this passage. How are we to think about the catastrophe, the famine, the pandemic, the violence of war, the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the natural disasters?

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What are we to think when we read the headlines like that? We are to listen to the headlines and see in them a confident call as His children.

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We listen with a stability as the earth shakes under us, for we are told by the one who will return for us that these are merely the beginning of the pains of childbirth.

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This is a birth that is bringing forth a new kingdom, a kingdom without sin, a kingdom without pain, a kingdom without death, a kingdom where our

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Lord and Savior who has loved us deeply rules and reigns over us with justice and kindness and truth.

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We read into tragedy, we are those who read into tragedy, read into war, read into devastation the hope of a new and better world that is coming.

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And this makes us say, as a people, even so come, Lord Jesus, while we keep proactively doing our part in the kingdom in the here and now.

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I would like to conclude this message with a similar passage. I'm gonna read a longer passage, but it's in Romans 8, 18 through 23.

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Write that down if you wanna look it up later, Romans 8, 18 through 23. I know you can't mind the depths in me reading it to you, and I would love for you to look this over this week in preparation for the messages coming up leading us into those end times.

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The Apostle Paul says this, "'For I consider that the sufferings of this present time," we've had some sufferings, "'but the sufferings of this present time are not worth "'comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.'"

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Not even worth comparing, not even worth a contrast. "'The difficulties of this life are not comparable "'to the glory that's coming in this new kingdom.'"

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He goes on, "'For the creation waits with eager longing "'for the revealing of the sons of God. "'For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, "'but because of him who subjected it in hope.

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"'That the creation itself will be set free "'from its bondage to corruption "'and obtain the freedom of the glory "'of the children of God.

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"'For we know that the whole creation "'has been groaning together "'in the pains of childbirth until now.

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"'And not only the creation.'" Hear me, church. Hear Paul.

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"'And not only the creation, "'but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of his spirit "'grown inwardly as we wait eagerly "'for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.'"

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What are we doing right now? What are we doing on this planet? Eagerly, eagerly waiting.

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We are in the waiting room of history, waiting for the declaration. It's a boy!

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Our worship is no longer tied to geography. And so let me encourage you to lean into the shift.

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In the coming weeks, we're gonna see all kinds of instructions and guidance for us while we wait. But for now, lean into the shift.

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Our worship isn't tied to geography right now, but we are those who worship God in spirit and in truth.

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We can pray to him and sing to him and glorify him anywhere and anytime through his Holy Spirit. Lean into that change that he's brought for us.

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Secondly, for now, see to it that nobody leads you astray, except no substitutes for Jesus Christ.

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Hold him high and only follow those who hold him high. Third, for now, see that you are not alarmed.

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God is working his plan to bring about the ultimate birth of his glorious kingdom.

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And so if Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, then take communion during this next song and let's rejoice together as those who are eagerly awaiting the birth of his glorious, final, eternal, perfect kingdom.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the grace and mercy that you have given to us, even through a passage like this where we're reminded that we can worship you wherever we are, that geography doesn't matter.

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A passage where we're reminded that we are to be cautiously following hard after you and not straying towards other things that will tempt us.

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And then also to not be given over to panic. Father, I pray that you would make us those who rejoice. Even as we hear and we deal with and struggle through the tragedies of catastrophe around us, we don't celebrate those things, but we hear in them an echo and a reminder of those contractions leading towards the birth of a new kingdom.

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Father, I pray that you would give us your perspective this week and thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us.

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Thank you for his body broken for us and I pray that we would reflect on that together in joy in this gathering during communion now in Jesus' name, amen.