Mark 13:24-37New International Version (NIV)
24 “But in those days, following that distress,
“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[a]
26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it[b] is near, right at the door. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
The Day and Hour Unknown
32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert[c]! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
1 Corinthians 1:3-
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Get ready -
The great depression of the 1930’s in New Zealand was a terrible time according to those who lived through it. Jobs were very hard to come by Farmers walked off their farms land prices plummeted and survival was the key thing – growth was unthinkable. Those farmers who thought they could trade their way out of it by increased production were very soon disappointed. They increased the production of Butter and milk products which increased thwe worldwide surplus which forced the prices down. Buying a farm seemed ridiculous if you did buy one it would be very very cheap – Who would predict that by 2014 farms on only about 150 hectares could go for as much as 7 – 10 million dollars.
If you knew then what farms would be worth or even during the rural downturn of the 1980’s you would have bought up land wholesale and waited for the prices to rise.
You not only would have bought as much land as you could you would have encouraged your friends and relatives to buy up on a grand scale.
If we knew what was happening in the future we would act very very differently.
If I had really appreciated the harmful effects of smoking I would have hounded my parents to have knocked off smoking.
If I was a religious leader about 20 years before the birth of Christ and I really knew what was about to happen I would have been very excited about the birth of Jesus and would have been awestruck at his coming.
If I knew who he was really was then I would not have been part of the movement that hounded him to death on a cross.
If only!!!!!
Imagine if you only knew before hand!
The scripture reading this morning is part of the advent readings and it speaks of a time that is not present but in the future. The disciples had confused the destruction of Jerusalem with the end of time. But the destruction of Jerusalem was not to be the end but this was to be in the future.
A day Is coming though – in the future- when God wraps up the current situation on earth.
The final curtain of life on this planet as it has always been known will finish.
Here is what Jesus says:-
Mark 13:24-37New International Version (NIV)
24 “But in those days, following that distress,
“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[a]
26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
When you read this passage there is only one thing that you need concern yourself with.
This one thing deals with everything else as far as you are concerned. 26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
A day is coming when God’s elect will be gathered together – rescued if you like.
Your concern is to remain among the elect. Of course part of being among the elect is reaching out with Christ’s love to others
Continually.
On the one hand we have dramatic changes in the sky – The sun darkened – the moon not giving it’s light – and stars falling from the sky – noprmally that would be pretty scary but not here for God’s elect who God will gather to himself.
Historically this will happen.
We know it ahead of time and what we need to do is to be prepared.
We might think this is a scary and uncomfortable passage.
Advent is the Christian season that we are in. In a way it is a strange word because advent means essentially looking forward to and event in the future.one dictionary meaning says - v1. The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important: But then it goes on to describe the coming of Christmas. We look forward to celebrating when Jesus came 2000 years ago and all of world history changed.
But Jesus is coming again. Last time Jesus came he came as an infant in a manger – bortn of a virgin next time Jesus tells us –
26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
I commented earlier that We might think this is a scary and uncomfortable passage.
But it shouldn’t be really.
If we think about it the Jewish people had many prophecies about the coming of Jesus some of them by the Prophet of Isaiah some 800 years before the birth of Jesus. These prophecies promised that god would come and rescue his people through the son of God. The Jews expected a Messiah who would come and rescue them and bring them peace – Here is what Isaiah predicts.
THE PROPHECY THE FULFILLMENT
The Messiah: Jesus of Nazareth:
Will be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14) Was born of a virgin named Mary (Luke 1:26-31)
Will have a Galilean ministry (Isaiah 9:1,2) Ministry began in Galilee of the Gentiles (Matthew 4:13-16)
Will be an heir to the throne of David (Isaiah 9:7; 11:1, 10) Was given the throne of His father David (Luke 1:32, 33)
Will have His way prepared (Isaiah 40:3-5) Was announced by John the Baptist (John 1:19-28)
Will be spat on and struck (Isaiah 50:6) Was spat on and beaten (Matthew 26:67)
Will be exalted (Isaiah 52:13) Was highly exalted by God and the People (Philippians 2:9, 10)
Will be disfigured by suffering (Isaiah 52:14; 53:2) Was scourged by Roman soldiers who gave Him a crown of thorns (Mark 15L15-19)
Will make a blood atonement (Isaiah 53:5 Shed His blood to atone for our sins (1Peter 1:2)
Will be widely rejected (Isaiah 53:1,3) Was not accepted by many (John 12:37, 38)
Will bear our sins and sorrows (Isaiah 53:4, 5) Died because of our sins (Romans 4L25; 1Peter 2:24, 25)
Will be our substitute (Isaiah 53:6,8) Died in our place (Romans 5:6, 8; 2 Corinthians 5:21)
Will voluntarily accept our guilt and punishment for sin (Isaiah 53:7,8) Jesus took on our sins (John 1:29; Romans 6:10; 2 Corinthians 5:21)
Gentiles will seek Him (Isaiah 11:10) Gentiles came to speak to Jesus (John 12:20,21)
Will be silent before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7) Was silent before Herod and his court (Luke 23:9)
Will save us who believe in Him (Isaiah 53:12) Provided salvation for all who believe (John 3:16; Acts 16:31)
Will die with transgressors (Isaiah 53:12) Was numbered with the transgressors (Mark 15:27, 28; Luke 22:37)
Will heal the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1,2) Healed the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18, 19)
God's Spirit will rest on Him (Isaiah 11:2) The Spirit of God descended on Jesus (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; 4:1)
Will be buried in a rich man's tomb (Isaiah 53:9 Was buried in the tomb of Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-60; John 19:38-42)
He will judge the earth with righteousness (Isaiah 11:4,5) Jesus was given authority to judge (John 5:27; Luke 19:22; 2 Timothy 4:1,8)
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2000 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.
Everything predicted about Jesus happened – because he died for our sins the whole world celebrates Christmas the coming of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
Of course we should celebrate.This is the moment in history when humanity was restored to God. Men and Woman again could engage with God freed from their sins and faults. Heaven was now a certainty for those who followed Jesus.
But now here in Mark there is a new Advent Jesus is coming again and this time in quite a different way.
Many people have tried to predict the coming of Jesus the Millerites in the 19th century were a bizzare group who announced three different arrival dates for Jesus – Each time they did people listened to them and each time Jesus didn’t come again as it says in Marks gospel.
This stupidity gave birth to both the Jehovah witnesses and the 7th day Adventists what was wrong with that/ Because quite simply Jesus says this Mark 13:32 But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
We don’t know the day or hour Jesus makes it quite plain that no-one knows the dates or time Jesus will come again. At that time not even Jesus knows.
This morning I want to encourage you how we are to live in the light of Jesus coming again.
First point is fearlessly. For some the thought of God pulling the curtains back on the sky as it were and jesus coming again seems fairly scary – But in my view it is not – God made the universe – He is our perfect God and his creation was inherently perfection we sit on this small planet in this solar system part of the universe and we hurtle around the sun at breakneck speed in this world that Louis Giglio says in relation to the sun is that if the world were a golf ball the sun would be 15 feet across and the sun would contain 960,000 times approximately earth that is a lot of golf balls and the universe is so big – People look for other life in the universe and don’t find it because it was made to display the glory of God.
Gigglio says we need to use a ruler 5.8 trillion miles wide to measure across our universe.
I can trust God to pull up the blind of this universe because the truth is my life is in his hands and when his son comes I don’t need to lift my eyes to the star to see God’s glory I see it in his son and I can trust him.
Jesus tells us not to even try to figure the day of his coming but he does tell us to be generally aware that he is coming – He doesn’t try to dissuade us from being alert to the season when Jesus is coming again he just tells us we can’t nail it down.
When Jesus comes again why do you need a sun when the lamb is the light of the city of God.
The son is not light- the stars are not light – God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
I love this quote it is from Neil Armstrong from the first man who walked on the moon said when I looked at the earth – I put up my finger and it blotted out the earth and Armstrong said – “I felt very very small.”
We can feel small – we hang on this golfball called earth but God who is so great compared to us – so big if you like – then God is going to embrace you in his love on that day.
We are known and prized by majesty.
When Jesus says For God so loved the world
He invites us into a relationship with him
Even though we are so small
I mean look at your grandmothers life – I mean My Aunty May who went to the salvation Army she died at 101 and I helped take her funeral but 101 – Come on that is not long – It’s long for us but it is just a moment in terms of universe history.
But Aunty May is now in the arms of Jesus in a perfect heaven and this passage this advent of Jesus is God saying one day I am going to say enough – Enough of suffering and hardship – enough of powerful people intimidating the pwowerless enough of people suffering from Cancer and enough of religious fanatics blowing up other believers or just unsuspecting human beings enough of tyrants killing millions of Jews or innocent civilians that God has trusted to his care – enough of beheading – abusive relationships sinful behaviour – grotesque pornography and evil horror movies – enough of spiritual rubbish displaying itself as good – What God is saying – One day I am going to say enough!
He is saying Jesus will come and gather those who accept Christ in the air into the house of God and take them to himself.
Jesus coming again is the justice that you’ve always groaned for it is the resolution of every hurt and painful thing on earth it is the end and a new beginning all at once and when it happens if Christ is your Lordand saviour you will meet him right there in the air and the meeting of Jesus will be the most incredible moment of your life bar none – Nothing that has gone before will compare this.
Peter James and John got a glimpse of what that is like when they went up a hill with Jesus and he was transfigured into something of the fullness of his glory.
Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
At that moment Jesus will be revealed to you and it will be the most amazing moment of your life.
At that moment a whole lot of things in your life will collide and when they collide there will be a holy collision that will transport you into the presence of God and his heaven.
You see when we made Jesus our Lord and saviour we were preparing ourselves for this day when we meet God in the air – Our response to God on that day will collide with Mark chapter 13 on that day.
Because we have accepted the mighty act of grace that God has given us in Jesus Christ because we have accepted his death on the cross we will rise and meet the Lord in the air.
You have walked with God on this earth and when Jesus sends his angels to meet him you will willingly go because you will want to be with him and celebrate not just what he has done but what you have done as a response of love to what he has done!
What a great moment!
At this moment God’s truth will collide with mans philosophies, religion and science. It will really really be important to be walking with God on that day as Peter says 2 Peter 3:10 ESV / 5 helpful votes
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
What does this important message have to say to us in our lives.
1. Walk with God. Having committed our lives to God we need to walk with him –
It is not enough for us to accept him we need to follow him. That is the easiest thing and the hardest thing that you will ever have to do. It is the easiest because it is what you were designed to do – to follow God. It is the hardest because we live in a broken world.
Tears streaking her cheeks, Evie Brand pleaded with her mission board. Rules were rules, they answered. She was too old to go back to India. She must retire.
Evie had sacrificed her comforts, her tiny income, her family for the work. With her husband, Jesse, she had pioneered on the Mountains of Death until he died of fever. Year after year, she lived entirely on a small inheritance and set aside her official salary to buy parcels of land for the mission. But the board said it made no sense to appoint a sixty-eight year old woman to another five year term.
Evie did not see it that way. Years ago, she and her husband Jesse had vowed to reach five mountain ranges with the gospel. Four still had to be reached. Evie felt that God intended for her to fulfill that vow. She saw one last chance. "Please just send me back for one year," she pleaded. "I promise not to make any more trouble. At the end of one year I will retire."
Reluctantly the board agreed. Had they known Evie's secret plan, they would surely have refused. When her year with the mission ended, fellow missionaries gathered to wish her goodbye. Then came the shocker. Evie gleefully informed them that she was retiring from the mission-- retiring to take up independent work in the mountains. She would fulfill the promise that she and Jesse had undertaken years before. Protests and warnings fell on deaf ears.
Rejoicing, seventy-year-old Evie began to fulfill Jesse's dream. Everyone called her "Granny," now, but she felt young. She traveled from village to village, riding a hill pony, camping, teaching, and dispensing medicine. She rescued abandoned children. The work was hard because her body was thin now. Life became even more difficult when she was dropped by her carriers and whacked her head on a rock. She never completely recovered her balance after that. She took to walking with bamboo canes in her hands. Yet the face that she turned upon the world was full of joy and laughter. "Praise God!" she exclaimed continually.
Despite broken bones and fevers, she labored on. In fifteen years, she almost eradicated Guinea worm from the Kalryan range. (Guinea worms grow several feet long under a person's skin.) Through her efforts, the five ranges were evangelized, and a mission work planted on each. She added two more ranges. "Extraordinary," said people. Granny insisted it was all God's doing.
Whether on her mountains or off, she proclaimed Christ. In a hospital with a broken hip, she scooted on a carpet from room to room and talked to the other patients. She painted landscapes for them. Her bones knit in record time and back she went to the mountains to fight marijuana growers. Her son Paul visited her and found her looking not older but younger. "This is how to grow old," he wrote. "Allow everything else to fall away, until those around you see just love."
Granny tore some ligaments and had to go to the plains for treatment. Before she could return to her beloved mountains, her speech became jumbled and her memory failed. Seven days later, on this day, December 18th, 1974, she died. The next day her body was taken back to the hills and laid beside Jesse's while a multitude wept. The woman who was considered too old for missions had carried on for twenty-four more years.
We may not be eva Brand but we are called to Follow Jesus and our response to that call will collide with the coming of Jesus on that day.
A former sinner says
God now sends me out to proclaim to the world the reality of His awesome love. How He made each one of us in His image and that we are completely loved and accepted no natter what we've done. How He sent His Son Jesus to free us from drugs, alcoholism, rejection and all the lies of Satan. I love to show the world, that YES God took a sinner and made a Champion out of her. God is the best Father and wants all of His children to find their way back home to Him so He can heal them and raise them up to be Champions too. But it's a choice only YOU can make.
I also want everyone to know that whatever God did for me, He will do for you. He'll do this because He LOVES you and sent His Son Jesus in order to give you a whole new life. All you have to do is come to Jesus and learn from Him.
Mt 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This woman too will meet Christ on that day because she follows him and her past is under the blood of Jesus.
What does all this mean to us?
It means a day is coming when Jesus is coming again
What does that mean to us.
Live towards that day as it says in…
1 Corinthians 1:3-
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The dairy price index continued to fall until 1934; dairy farmers tried to make ends meet by increasing production during the depression and in doing so forced the export prices of butter and cheese still lower: butter exported rose from 1,654,000 cwt in 1929 to 2,635,000 in 1933; cheese exports also rose, though much less rapidly.
Commentary on Mark 13:14-23
(Read Mark 13:14-23)
The Jews in rebelling against the Romans, and in persecuting the Christians, hastened their own ruin apace. Here we have a prediction of that ruin which came upon them within less than forty years after this. Such destruction and desolation, that the like cannot be found in any history. Promises of power to persevere, and cautions against falling away, well agree with each other. But the more we consider these things, the more we shall see abundant cause to flee without delay for refuge to Christ, and to renounce every earthly object, for the salvation of our souls.
Commentary on Mark 13:24-27
(Read Mark 13:24-27)
The disciples had confounded the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. This mistake Christ set right, and showed that the day of Christ's coming, and the day of judgment, shall be after that tribulation. Here he foretells the final dissolution of the present frame and fabric of the world. Also, the visible appearance of the Lord Jesus coming in the clouds, and the gathering together of all the elect to him.
Commentary on Mark 13:28-37
(Read Mark 13:28-37)
We have the application of this prophetic sermon. As to the destruction of Jerusalem, expect it to come very shortly. As to the end of the world, do not inquire when it will come, for of that day and that hour knoweth no man. Christ, as God, could not be ignorant of anything; but the Divine wisdom which dwelt in our Saviour, communicated itself to his human soul according to the Divine pleasure. As to both, our duty is to watch and pray. Our Lord Jesus, when he ascended on high, left something for all his servants to do. We ought to be always upon our watch, in expectation of his return. This applies to Christ's coming to us at our death, as well as to the general judgment. We know not whether our Master will come in the days of youth, or middle age, or old age; but, as soon as we are born, we begin to die, and therefore we must expect death. Our great care must be, that, whenever our Lord comes, he may not find us secure, indulging in ease and sloth, mindless of our work and duty. He says to all, Watch, that you may be found in peace, without spot, and blameless.
