Forewarned is Forearmed
(Mark 13:1-13)
1. A woman blogs, “Today, I learned that my daughter's gerbils are not afraid of the vacuum cleaner.”
2. That is not normal. All animals should be afraid of the vacuum cleaner. And all people should know how to spell it. One c, two “u’s.”
3. When it comes to disasters, destruction, famines, and earthquakes, it is natural to be afraid of them, too. God uses them to alert us to the fact that His wrath is upon mankind because of sin. They are not correlated to particular people, but in a general way, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven,” Paul writes in Romans 1.
4. The course of history is filled with horrid events that, in a sense, predict the worst assemblages of disasters the world we see, the End Time 7-year tribulation that occurs before Jesus returns to set up His Kingdom.
5. All of the above — except for the gerbils and vacuum — are addressed by Jesus in the chapter we are beginning.
6. If you put together the Gospels, you will discover that Jesus was asked more than one question. One had to do with the Destruction of Jerusalem that would occur in 70 AD, the other about the End Time Tribulation. Mark summarizes the question into one.
Luke 21:20 answers the question about when Jerusalem would be ready to be destroyed in 70 AD, but Mark leave that information out.
Main Idea: Jesus warns his followers about hard times near at hand, in the current age, and in the future end times. Today we will look at the “then” and the “now.” Next time we will begin to address the “later.”
I. Then: The DESTRUCTION of Jerusalem in 70 AD — the Disaster Near at Hand (1-2)
A. DETAILED answer given to believers in Luke 21:20.
““But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it…’”
B. The historian Josephus recorded the event: over one MILLION Jews killed.
C. This could have been AVERTED had the Jews repented and believed.
Acts 3:17-21, ““And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.’”
D. Jesus elaborated more on this as He was walking to CALVARY.
Luke 23:27-31, “And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
The green tree/dry tree figure of speech comes from Ezekiel 20-21; the green tree represents the righteous, the dry the unrighteous.
E. The 9th of Av and God’s SOVEREIGN hand
1. First temple destroyed/Jerusalem burned in 586 BC, second 70AD
2. Book of Lamentations laments this destruction.
Application: We often do not know what is around the corner. One guy blogged, “Today, I got an invitation to my ‘going away lunch’ the company is throwing for me. I didn't know I was leaving.”
We get surprised all the time; but God is never surprised. We listen to experts predict the future — which team will win, which politician will get elected — which stocks will rise — but unless it is very near future, our guesses are as good as theirs.
God knows what is around the corner for us, and, in His Sovereign plan, He is out to develop us both by what He causes and by what He allows. We cannot figure out how the particulars fit it, but they do. Like an oil painting close up, perplexed.
II. Now: The NATURE of God’s Current INTERIM Kingdom (3-13)
A. The Mount of OLIVES Sermon (3)
This was probably a long lesson, and we have a few minutes of summary
B. The course of HISTORY: what is normal (4-13)
1. False MESSIAHS and religions (3-6)
2. WARFARE (4-8a)
3. EARTHQUAKES and famines (8b)
Whenever a natural disaster occurs, people wonder if God is really in charge. Jesus saw no incongruity with God’s sovereignty and natural upheavals.
4. PERSECUTION of believers (9-13)
5. We can expect these to INTENSIFY during the future Tribulation
C. We must not confuse the current form of the Kingdom with the MILLENNIUM.
Some people are not too bright this way. [Australian joke] Ricky decides to go back home to Melbourne so he calls Qantas Airlines to book his flight. The operator asks him, 'How many people are flying with you?'
Ricky replies, 'Mate, how would I know. It's your plane.'
They do not understand that Jesus will return one day to set up His Kingdom, but now we live in a cursed universes with sinful people who make up sinful nations.
D. This does not mean that we cannot generally ENJOY life much of the time.
E. Christians should be among the most JOYFUL and most REALISTIC people around.
1. Few things worse, IMO, than fake spirituality (doing gloriously)
2. One major problem with the health and wealth Gospel is that it encourages denial of reality and rationalizing (creative lying).
3. Other people cannot enjoy life because they are stifled by gloom in our world
4. I struggle with this, esp. with things like the destruction of Biblical marriage, the horrid persecution by ISIS, and the prognosis for America’s future…
F. Main characteristic of happy people: the ability to ADJUST to things beyond their control
From Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott III in, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, p. 61:
“What makes happy couples happy? Dr. Allen Parducci, a prominent UCLA researcher, asked this question and found that money, success, health, beauty, intelligence, or power have little to do with a couple’s “subjective well-being” (lab-speak for happiness). Instead, research reveals that the level of a couple’s joy is determined by each partner’s ability to adjust to things beyond his or her control.”
