Beginning Of Pains (Deceivers & Disasters) - Mark 13:5-8 Series

You hear people say all the time, “Oh, things are really getting bad. I think Jesus is coming soon.” Jesus told us just the opposite. An earthquake could shake the whole west coast into the ocean so you could sail from Las Vegas to Hawaii, and China and Russia could join forces and wipe the rest of the U.S. off the map, and a real pandemic could wipe out 50% of the world population, and it still wouldn’t be a sign of the end. It would still fit in the category of the beginning of pains.

So there are two possibilities. Either we are living in the beginning of pains, or we are living in a time that is exactly like the beginning of pains. Either way, the instructions Jesus gave about how to live during that period apply directly to us.

Application: Insight

And what are those instructions? (That’s the end of the controversial part. What Jesus said we are to do during the beginning of pain is pretty straightforward.) The mission is to preach the gospel. But how do we successfully do that in the face of deceivers, disasters, and persecution? I think you can boil it down to one word: insight. When Jesus begins the sermon, the very first word out of his mouth is “watch.”

Mark 13:5 Watch out that no one deceives you.

Blepo

That word means more than just “watch out.” The Greek word is blepo, and its’ the word Mark has been using all through the book to describe spiritual insight. When they asked Jesus why he spoke in parables, he said: Mark 4:12 … so that, " 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving That’s the word blepo. It means to not only see, but to see beyond the surface. Then he told his disciples:

Mark 4:24 Consider carefully (blepo) what you hear

Don’t just hear it, but really see it.

In ch.8 Jesus told his disciples to blepo the yeast of the Pharisees. Have enough insight to detect it. They didn’t understand what he meant, and Jesus said, “You have eyes, but fail to blepo.” And then, to illustrate what he meant, Jesus healed a blind man’s eyes but not his understanding so he could see just fine but couldn’t understand what he was seeing. He saw people and thought they were trees.

So all through the book Jesus has been using this word blepo to refer to spiritual perception—insight into unseen, spiritual realities. And now, when the disciples ask Jesus about the end times, the first word out of his mouth in his answer is blepo! And he repeats it four times in his answer. Blepo, blepo, blepo, blepo. If you want to be one who stands firm all the way to the end with your faith intact, you’re going to have to watch the news through spiritual eyes.

Insight About False Teachers

And that’s especially true when the false teachers start showing up.

5 Blepo, so that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and will deceive many.

False Fears

Why so many? Because when disasters happen, people become gullible. The world feels like it’s spiraling out of control, people get uneasy and unsettled, and false teachers use that to deceive them. Once you get people scared, you can get them to believe pretty much anything. If you doubt that, I just have one word for you: COVID. Scare people enough, they’ll be putty in your hands. That’s why Jesus says, “Don’t be alarmed,” because it’s when you’re alarmed that you become gullible.