The Signs Of The Times Part 2

The Signs of the Times Pt. 2

Mark 13:9-13

Dr. Tony Evans said, “Your expectations always affect your behavior.

If you found out that you were terminally ill and only had one year to live, I can guarantee it will affect your behavior.

All of a sudden with only twelve months to live, certain things that used to be important wouldn’t be important anymore.

Certain things that are wrong, you’d want to get right, because your expectation of death would transform your life.

We live how we really believe. People can’t hear what we say, because our lives speak louder than our words!

Please open your Bibles to Mark 13 as we continue in a verse-by-verse study of the Gospel of Mark.

Last week, we learned how Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple, and in 70 A.D. the Romans toppled every stone to retrieve the gold, fulfilling the prediction from 38 years earlier.

Since Jesus perfectly predicted the destruction of the Temple, it stands to reason that all other prophecies will happen exactly as He predicted as well.

The Disciples went to Jesus after the prediction of the Temple, and they asked…

When will these things be? What will be the sign of Your coming? What will be the sign of the end of the age?

Mark 13 speaks about the signs of Jesus’ physical return, but it is not talking about the time Jesus comes for His Church, which is called the rapture!

The things described by Jesus in Mark 13 are not the End but, they are creating the foundation for the End of the Age.

We also learned that the 7-year Tribulation is currently being restrained by the Holy Spirit, as the Lord said…

Our heavenly Father knows exactly where we are, and nothing can happen to us that He is not aware of.

We can trust Jesus to forgive our past, take care of us in our present, and to work all things together for good for our future.

This morning is part two of the signs of the times as we learn about more things that happen after the Church is raptured out of here and God’s wrath is poured out on a Christ rejecting world.

I. The trials promised to the left behind.

Read Mark 13:9

There is a three-fold explanation of this prediction from Jesus as He told His disciples to be prepared for the persecution that would come against them before the end of the age.

The first explanation was an immediate one for the Disciples. The persecution they would endure was not the end, but they should have expected it because of their relationship to Jesus.

All of the Disciples were martyred for their faith except the Apostle John.

John, who did not die when he was boiled in oil, by the order of the Roman Emperor, was then exiled to the Greek island of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation.

Because of all of the immediate persecution and the future persecution, many people will be offended by Christianity.

Many of the early Christians became martyrs and were persecuted for their beliefs.

According to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 6 million Christians were executed within the first three centuries of the Church.

Around the time the Apostle Paul was writing his Epistles which later become part of the New Testament, Ceasar Nero began persecuting Christians.

And for 250 years after Nero committed suicide, most of the Roman Emperors tried to stop the Christian faith from growing or even existing, but to no avail.

Jews would not accept the fact that Jesus was the son of God, so when the Christian community was persecuted under Roman rule, the Jewish leadership encouraged the persecution.

In fact, Stephen was the first Christian to be martyred by stoning, which happened by the order of the Jewish Council.

Jesus was very clear with His Disciples that they would endure persecution, but that persecution was not the end of time.

Notice what Jesus said in vs. 9; these things will happen to you, for My sake, for a testimony to them.

What if I were to tell you that the Lord has a plan for all of the things that He allows to happen to His chosen people.

Psalm 56:8 You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?

Psalm 56:9 When I cry out to You, then my enemies will turn back; this I know, because God is for me. NKJV

I want you to imagine being a TV reporter in heaven and doing an interview with an early follower of Christ.

You might ask, “So tell me sir, how did you feel about being persecuted for Jesus’ sake after He ascended back to heaven?”

The Disciple would probably answer, “Can you believe I passed the test and was able to trust the Lord through the pain, as I was able to be a testimony for Jesus?”