Good News For Bad Times, Part 1 (Mark 13) Series

Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Mark 13. And the first thing I need you to do is take your listening guide, and next to the title, write “Part 1.” I realized after we printed the bulletin for this week that there’s too much to cover here for one sermon.

In 1988, a former NASA engineer and Bible student named Edgar Whisenant published a pamphlet called, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988. He predicted Jesus would return between the sunset of September 11 1988 and sunset of September 13 1988.

By September of that year, Whisenant had sold 4.5 million copies of the pamphlet, and sent it for free to 300,000 pastors. There were reports of people selling their posessions, putting their pets to sleep, and camping out on hilltops to witness the second coming.

One travel agency began booking tours to Israel to witness the Second Coming of Jesus to Israel. The travel agency brochure stated:

“We stay at the Intercontinental Hotel right on the Mount of Olives where if this is the year of the Lord’s return, as we anticipate, you may even ascend to Glory from within a few feet of His ascension.”

The cost for the trip was $1975 from Los Angeles or $1805 from New York.

But just to be on the safe side, in case this whole Rapture thing didn’t work out, the airfare was round trip.

There’s no doubt people are fascinated about the end of the world. You see it in movie theatres, with movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon, Deep Impact, 2012, , Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, World War Z, Contagion, The Emoji Movie (ok—that one technically isn’t about the end of the world, but when they start making movies based on Emojis, that has to be a sign of the Apocalypse.

And when there is so much chaos in the world, its natural for people to go to Scripture and ask themselves, is this it? Are we nearing the time when God is going to say “Game Over,” and Jesus is going to return? And if so, does that truth fill you with fear or hope?

In Mark 13, we realize that the questions we are asking today are questions Jesus’ followers have been asking literally since the time of Jesus. A few weeks ago we looked at the first two verses of Mark 13. Jesus and his disciples were walking out of the temple, and the disciples were oohing and ahhing over how awesonme the Temple was, when Jesus dropped this truth bomb on them:

2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

Now, this was understandably a little unnerving to the disciples, so Peter, James, John, and Andrew pull him over to the side to say, (verse 4):

4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?”

Introduction: The Million Dollar Question: WHEN? (v. 4)

Two things to realize about this. First, remember that the disciples were asking specifically about the destruction of the Temple, because that's what they had just been talking about, and that's what they are currently looking at. Now, we’re gonna see pretty quickly that Jesus is talking about much more than the Temple. But Biblical prophecy isn’t just about future events. God often used past history and current events to warn His people about the future.

But second, I want you to notice that Jesus doesn’t give them an actual answer. Stop and think about this for a minute: If Jesus didn't tell His inner circle of disciples when all this would take place, why do you think He would Edgar Whisenant?

Or this guy… (pic of other Rapture Guy 1)

Or this guy (Rapture Guy 2)

When we get to verse 32, we’re going to see that God the Father hasn’t even revealed the timeline to Jesus the Son. So whenever we start putting together our timelines and charts and graphs, we have to do so with a lot—A LOT!!—of humility.

Let’s look at our first set of verses. Read verse 5-8 with me:

5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.