Seeking for the help and blessing
of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to the Gospel according
to Mark chapter 13 and reading from our text, verse 5. And Jesus answering them began
to say, take heed lest any man deceive you. Mark chapter 13
and verse 5. Our text is an answer to the
questions put to him by Peter, James and John and Andrew. They had asked him privately,
tell us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign
when all these things shall be fulfilled. They had come out
of the temple and the disciples had noticed the stones and they
pointed them out to the Lord, the great stones of the buildings
and said in verse one, see what manner of stones and what buildings
are here. And the Lord had responded and
highlighted what they were looking at see'st thou these great buildings
and then tells them that there shall not be left one stone upon
another that shall not be thrown down. And so it was later on
when they came to the Mount of Olives then as they were looking
out over the temple that then this question was asked privately
by the disciples When shall these things be? Now text then is the
beginning of our Lord's answer to them. Well, if we compare
what actually had been asked in the Gospel according to Matthew
and chapter 24, which is a parallel chapter to the one that we have
our text in, then our disciples had asked of two things really,
confusing two things. They say in verse three of Matthew
24, tell us, when shall these things be? That is what the Lord
has said about there should not be left one stone upon another
that shall not be overthrown. And then they say, What shall
be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world? And
almost the implication is that these great stones, they won't
be overthrown until the Lord comes again and the end of the
world. But actually there was to be
two events. One was to be the destruction
of Jerusalem in 70 AD. when those stones were to be
overthrown, and so many of the things in these chapters, they
do refer to that time, 70 AD. But, undeniably, the other things,
they refer to the Lord's second coming, and of course that very
much concerns us, but not only concerning the Lord's second
coming, But for many of us, our death will be equivalent to that
time when the Lord comes. So the exhortation to take heed
will apply to all people. And certainly, as we know not
the time or the day, then we are never to think, well, we
are not the generation that's living when the Lord shall come
again, or we need to concern ourselves about is the day of
our death. Well, if we are looking for the
Lord's second coming, we shall be prepared rightly for our death
as well. Before we look at the verse,
I just want to really gather together some facts, some things
that are very certain from the portion that we've read and of
this these portions here in Mark and in Matthew. And the first
is that the world certainly will end. Some will think, well, it'll
just continue on and on, but the Lord is very clear. In verse 31, heaven and earth
shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Our Lord
very clearly sets forth in this chapter that this world will
pass away. We're also told in verse 22 that
no man knows the hour, no, not even the angels, and he even
includes the sun himself in his humility, that he should not
know that time. But of course, God does, and
the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that time, is determined,
but we do not know. And knowing that, no man that
could rise up and say, well, I know the scriptures, or I'm
a prophet, or I know what time shall be the end. We are told
we do not know the time. And yet, we are told that there
shall be very distinct signs at the end. We are warned in
this passage that signs like the earthquakes and pestilences
like we're in now, and nations rising up against nation, that
all of these things shall happen, but they shall not be the signs
of the imminent, the end of the time. And we are told not to
be fearful of those things. And no doubt some have thought
with the great wars through history, the two world wars, the great
things that are happening, that truly these are signs. They are
signs of the last days. The last days are the gospel
days from Christ's first coming to his second coming at the end
of the world. And all of these things, including
the pandemic that we're in now, are these signs that the Lord
is talking about. but not that it is absolutely
eminent. But we are told very clearly
in verse 24 that at the very, very end, after days of tribulation,
after all of these things that we've mentioned about, that the
sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light,
the stars of heaven shall fail, the powers in heaven shall be
shaken. Now there shall be no doubt whatsoever
about those signs. He gives the illustration or
the parable of a fig tree, and when her branches yet tender,
putteth forth yet leaves, he know that summer is near. And really it is a picture of
it being eminently near, right, very nigh at hand. And so, though
we don't know the day or the hour, yet we do know what will
happen immediately before. And I know I've used this illustration
before, but it left such an impression upon me in 2004, when we had
the terrible tsunamis in different parts of the world, and there
was the relation of the events that happened there. People were
going about their daily lives. They were going to the shops.
They were just doing their daily lives. And some of them, they,
like, were driving along the shore and they saw the sea just
go straight out and just leave the bare sand. Others of them,
they saw the animals all taking flight and running to higher
ground. And other than, they saw these
signs and these things happening that were very, very strange,
very, very unusual. And then very, very quickly,
the sea then came back, the great waves came in, and they were
all destroyed and taken away. And I feel this is what is set
before us here, in this type or kind of a time scale. It is not a time scale that we
might have warnings for many months or many years, but a warning
when it is right nigh at the doors, when it is very, very
close. And the illustration that's set
forth here is that when these signs would come, and I know
some of these are speaking of the destruction of 70 AD, but
it applies to the end as well, there's not even enough time
to come down from the top of the house. There's not even enough
time to return to collect anything from the field. We wouldn't see
these things and say, oh, we must phone up our children, or
we must contact our relatives, or we must do this or that. The
sign shall come so suddenly at the end that there shall be no
time but to prepare ourselves to meet the Lord and to look
up, as the scriptures say, for our redemption draweth nigh. It is too late then. to believe
the gospel, too late then to repent, too late then to seek
the Lord, the Lord is coming. And so the urgency, while it
is today to seek the Lord and to be ready against that time,
just as suddenly as it came with the tsunamis, and of course,
we know there are those whose lives are taken away so instantly
on our roads, and for whom there is no warning, but death comes
so suddenly, it's not even seen. And so, looking at a passage
like this, we can glean these things, and other things as well. Our Lord speaks of here, about
from the creation, in verse 19, that there be days of affliction,
such as not from the beginning of the creation which God created,
Some people will just discount the early chapters in Genesis
as just being a myth and not true. And here is the Lord Jesus
Christ clearly speaking of the creation and he does it many
times in his ministry. Anyone that would discount any
part of that creation is immediately contradicting the Lord and cutting
themselves off from any salvation. He is the God that made the world,
speaking of the end of the world and the finishing of the world. And so may we look at a passage
like this, look at what the Lord has said in verse 10, the gospel,
the good news of salvation must first be published among all
nations. And it is our privilege to, in
this nation, publish the gospel. and publish it in Cranbrook and
where we have been placed. The good news of salvation, the
warning also of these things that shall happen. So then our
Lord prefaced all of these remarks, the very first beginning of what
he has to say in the words of our text, answering them, began
to say, take heed, lest any man deceive you. So on to look then
with the Lord's help at three points. Firstly, the exhortation
to take heed. And secondly, the reason given
to take heed in our text is lest any man deceive you. And then thirdly, other things
our Lord in his ministry specifically warns us to take heed of. There's just four points to Notice
in that the specific things. Of course, we may draw inference
from many things to take heed of, but there's other things
that he specifically uses the words to take heed of. But firstly, the exhortation
to take heed. What does heed or taking heed
mean? Really it means to pay attention
or especially pay careful attention, to take notice of something. In other words, things can happen
and if we don't take heed, they pass our attention, we don't
even notice them and so really cannot prophet or be warned at
all by them. It is to take careful attention,
careful attention. So this is what our Lord warns
here, take heed. Now if we don't take heed, if
we don't take attention, our warnings in the Word of God,
we think, Moses, that man of God, a man that said, the Lord
shall raise up unto you a prophet like unto me, him shall ye hear,
one that spoke unto God face to face. And yet at the beginning
of the journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness,
the Lord gave him the command to smite the rock that the water
might come out, and he took heed to do that, as was directed at
the end of those 40 years in the wilderness. The Lord told
him, when the children of Israel were murmuring, that he should
speak unto the rock that the water might come out. But he
didn't take heed to the difference in the Lord's command, and he
took the rod He was commanded to do that. He gathered the people,
and he was commanded to do that. But then he smote the rock twice,
and instead of speaking to the rock, he spoke to the people,
and in an angry way, must I bring you water out of this rock, ye
rebels? Well, the Lord brought the water
out of the rock, but because Moses did not take heed to sanctify
the Lord or to honor the Lord, and to obey the Lord exactly
what he had said to him to do, Moses was not to go into the
Promised Land. He paid, you might say, a high
price for not taking careful heed to the command of the Lord. And of course, the children of
Israel, right at the beginning as well, when they were given
the directions of gathering the manna, they had to take careful
heed to the instructions that they were given to not hoard
it up. They were to gather each day
what they were to have for that day. But the last day, the sixth
day, they were to have twice as much so that they didn't,
on the holy day, on the seventh day, need to gather any. None
would be there, no manna that day. So they had to take heed. Don't hoard it up or it will
breed mead. Worms on the five days, do hoard
it up on the sixth day, the extra amount, because there won't be
any on the seventh day. And so it's a careful attention
to the detail of God's commands. And of course, we know this in
natural ways in our lives, don't we? We need to take heed to time. If you've got an appointment,
a doctor's appointment, dentist, A job interview, what it is,
you take heed to time. You don't just get involved in
doing other things and, oh dear, we missed the time, it's too
late. You know what the consequences
of that would be. If you're sitting down to an
exam, you had to take heed to the actual instructions of the
exam, what questions were being asked. I remember once being
given a little test. The whole class was given this
whole A4 sheet of instructions. The first instruction, it said,
write your name on the paper. The second instruction said,
read the whole of the questions before answering any more. All of the rest of the questions,
they got you to do some most stupid things. Taking a shoe
off and putting it on the other foot, and all sorts of things. And people all started to do
this. And then others were just chuckling
and sitting back. And the thing was, the last point
on that paper was, ignore everything else that is on the paper just
put your name on it. And of course what people were
doing, they weren't reading everything down to the last point. They
were starting to do the things instead of obeying the second
point, which is to read everything first. And it was really a practical
example of taking heed to minute details or to one point and actually
obeying that instruction. I've never forgotten it and yet
that would have been when I was probably 11 or 12 that we were
given that assignment to do. We read of, even today, the laws
that are made because of the pandemic. We are told what we
can do and what we can't do. Some don't take heed to it. Some
have had birthday parties and find hundreds of pounds because
they have not taken heed to the laws of the land. We shouldn't
really need to have much exposition on the need to really take heed. But when we come here to the
word of God, we made the illustration of Moses, We have the case of
Abner, who was King Saul's general in the days of David. And Joab
had killed, who was David's general, he had killed, or Abner rather,
had killed Joab's brother Asahel in battle. And as revenge for
that, Joab wanted to kill Abner, and he did. He murdered him in
a time of peace. But he did it because Abner was
not taking heed. He thought Joab was just coming
to speak to him peaceably, and he lost his life. Joab killed
the Mesa in the same way. He came up to him, and as he
came up to him, Joab's sword fell out. So he went and picked
it up off the ground, as if to put it back into its scabbard,
But really what he had picked it up for is to kill Emesa. And we read in that account,
Emesa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand, and
it took his life. We read of Jehu, who said that
to the sons of Jonadab, come and see my zeal for the Lord. He executed the Lord's judgment,
against the house of Ahab. But we read the solemn word that
Jehu took no heed to the law of the Lord, to walk in it in
his heart. He wasn't a converted person. He could do many outward deeds,
even for the Lord, even executing the Lord's judgment. But he never
heeded the Lord in his heart, never loved the Lord, never truly
served him. And so the exhortation to take
heed. It is to the detail, to the actual
full instructions and to what is said, not just generalising
or just passing over it. There are many today who just
have a general idea of religion, although they say God is a God
of love, and they don't take heed to the particulars of the
Word of God. the actual teaching of the Word
of God, the warnings that are in the Word of God. They are
really willfully ignorant of it. They're not taking careful
attention to what is said and to what is said before them and
even what is happening in the world. So our Lord has an exhortation
to take heed. Do you take heed? Do I take heed? Do I take personal attention
to what is happening in the world? To what is in the Word of God?
To what I read? How I act and what I do? Am I paying careful attention
to it? Or am I just carelessly going
through the world and not paying attention to myself? How I act? What I do? Or what is happening in the world? Are we just careless, indifferent,
not taking any attention at all? So our Lord first has this word
to you and to me. Take heed. Take heed. The second is the reason given
to take heed, which is in our text, and that is this, lest
any man deceive you. Deceive you. Can't help thinking when we think
of deceiving, how did sin first enter into the world? God gave
to Adam and Eve in their innocency a command that they should not
eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, and yet they did. God said to them that in the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. But Satan came and he deceived
Eve, and Eve then gave to her husband, who ate and their eyes
were opened, sin entered into the world and death by sin. The very entrance of sin and
death and suffering and sickness into this world came because
of deception, because Satan deceived. We think of how it was with Isaac,
how Jacob got the blessing His son deceived his father, making
him believe that he was the eldest son. His father was blind. And
so he came and used ways to deceive him. His brother Esau was a hairy
man. So his mother got him to put
goat skins upon his hands and his arms. So when his father
felt him, he felt him a hairy man. And though his father thought
that the voice sounded like Jacob's, not Esau's, yet he was deceived
because his hands were hairy. And he stole the blessing, he
got the blessing. How many have been deceived? Jacob himself was then deceived
by Laban, When he thought that he was being given Rachel as
a wife, Laban gave him his eldest daughter Leah instead. Jacob
was deceived by his sons, who brought the coat of Joseph, all
dipped in goat's blood, and made out that Joseph had been torn
in pieces and killed. They didn't tell a direct lie,
They said, see this coat, is this thy son's or no? And let
the coat and the blood do the deceiving. And Jacob for 20 years believed
it. He thought that his son was dead.
Deception has been in the world. God's people have known it and
sin has entered because of it. But what a blessing that we have
here. Our Lord says, take heed lest
any man deceive you. We have in verse 23, another
take heed of the Lord. And he says this, behold, I have
foretold you all things. The Lord has foretold us. That
is part of what we have here. the Word of God, the inspired
Word of God. And I often say, and I say this
to the schoolchildren we give the Bibles to, if you and I have
a Bible, we have the Word of God. If you and I have a faithful
translation of the Word of God, in English we believe the authorised
version is the most faithful translation. If we have that,
we know that from beginning to end, it is the inspired, infallible
Word of God that we may trust, and that God has not given any
other revelation. No man shall be given any other
prophecy, revelation, or word from heaven apart from this. And if we know that, then we
can take this, the Holy Bible, the Word of God, and when men
come before us, whether they come under the name of a Baptist,
or Jehovah's Witness, or Mormon, or whatever religion you may
think of in the world, and you bring it to the test of the Word
of God, if they speak not according to these things, it is because
there is no life in them. The word of truth is before us. You know, if we were to have
a building made and a wall put up and we think, is that wall
upright or not? Is it leaning or not? We would
take a plumb line or a spirit level and we'd put that up against
that wall And that would soon tell us whether that wall was
straight or not. We would know because that measure
was exactly right. That plumb line would be completely
vertical. The spirit level would not lie.
And that's what the Word of God is to us. Against every thought
of man, every word of man, we have the Word of God as the truth. And so, When our Lord says, take
heed, lest any man deceive you, our first defence against being
deceived is the Lord's Word itself. I have foretold you not some
things, but all things. And we have in the Revelation
the warning that no man should take away or add anything from
the Word of God. And we know then that with the
Word of God we must keep it in context, we must compare Scripture
with Scripture. And the other way whereby that
man will not deceive us is when we have prayer in action. In verse 33, the Lord has another
take heed. He says, take ye heed, watch
and pray, for ye know not when the time is. Watching and praying,
comparing what we are seeing, looking at what is happening,
and praying. Prayer is vital. Prayer is when
man talks to God, but also in prayer there is communion and
fellowship between man and God. In preaching, God speaks to men. In prayer, men speak to God. And we are to come before the
Lord, asking, praying, seeking Him, seeking wisdom, light upon
the Word of God, that He'd open it to us, open our eyes, show
us the truth, and not leave us to be deceived. Are we reading
the Word of God? Do we believe it? Do we trust
in it? Do we join prayer with each inspection? Are we men and women of prayer? Do we live a life of faith and
prayer? And faith, true faith, cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Our faith must be
based upon the Word of God. There's many things in the Word
of God we don't understand, many things yet we have not seen come
to pass. But faith believes what it cannot
understand because God has said it. And he believes that God
will perform it because he has said he will do it and he has
power to do it. And like in this passage, part
of it we know has already been fulfilled. Jerusalem was destroyed. The stones were cast down. 70
years, AD 70, it did happen. and that which happens and will
come to pass at the end of the world will do as well. One of the most important things
is that we are not deceived as regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. He's very emphatic here that
there shall be those that shall come and say they are Christ
and draw many men after them. That is where we are not to be
deceived. When the Lord comes at last,
He will know where His people are. Wherever He is, His people
will be. And wherever His people are,
there He will be. We will not need to go out to
this country and that country and that person and that place. No, the Lord specifically warns
us of that. The Lord has promised with his
people, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
The Lord will come for his people. That beautiful word in John 14,
I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I
am, there ye may be also. We have another take heed in
this chapter. and that is to take heed to ourselves
in verse 9. Take heed to yourselves. This
is in the context of being persecuted and taken before governors and
before rulers and shall betray one another. The word is to take
heed to yourself. Sometimes we can be all the time
thinking of what's happening around us. or what other people
are doing or what other people are saying, but we don't take
heed to ourselves. Are we believing? Are we ready? What is our spirit? Have we the
spirit of Christ? Are we truly amongst those that
are trusting, believing? Or are we like those, when I
was at school, I wasn't good at athletics. When it came to
Sports Day, I was just on the sidelines. I could comment on
the races, upon the things done, not often taking part myself. But in the things of God, we
are in the race. We are taking part. Instead of
just commenting on others, we're to take heed to ourselves. Are we a Christian? Are we a
believer? Are we following the Lord? Are
we believing? Are we repenting? Are we following
the Lord, taking heed to ourselves? Are we doing that? Our Lord Jesus answering them
began to say, take heed lest any man deceive you. And so, so as we're not deceived,
or any man deceive us not, may we pay heed to the Word of God,
and to prayer, and to ourselves, and then we will not be deceived,
not by any man, because we have the Word of God, because we are
taking heed to ourselves, and that we're not trusting in our
own strength, but praying to the Lord to be kept and to be
helped and to be given light. I want just as a last point to
notice other things that the Lord in his ministry specifically
warns to take heed over. The first is in the gospel according
to Matthew and chapter six and verse one, where the Lord warns
about giving our arms before men. Take heed that ye do not your
arms before men, to be seen of them. Otherwise ye have no reward
of your Father which is in heaven. What the Lord is warning of there
is that we have a religion that is just seeking the praise of
men. It comes very, very close. We
are all proud by nature. What the Lord requires is a closet
religion, that which is before God. We are to give alms, but
we're not to let our right hand know what the left hand gives.
We're not to be like thee, Pharisees, those that he pictures here. Do not sound a trumpet before
thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. We are to give alms, we are to
give tithes, as it were, freewill offerings, and we are very thankful
for those who have done that and do that in the Church of
God and for us here. But it is not to be seen of men. God sees it, and God will bless
it, and God will reward those that give. But it is given not
for praise of men, but for praise of God. And so that is why we
have here, take heed, you do not answer for men. The second one is in, again,
Matthew and chapter 18, where the Lord warns about offending
or despising the little ones or those that believe on the
Lord. We have in this verse, Matthew
18 verse 10, Take heed that ye despise not one of these little
ones, for I say unto you that in heaven the angels do always
behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. For the Son
of Man is come to save that which is lost. Those that believe on the Lord,
those who have spoken of little ones, whether they be children
or whether they be those that have a childlike spirit, but
that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are not to despise
them. It is a solemn thing, and I've
seen it even in many churches, and there have been some very
simple souls but they've been real believers, real tender in
the things of God, and the Lord has blessed them. But it's been
a very sad thing to see those who have made profession completely
despising them, discounting them. The Lord really warns against
that. If you and I have the true faith
of God, then it will make us low, make us humble, and not
to despise any of the little ones that believe on the Lord. Then we have in the Gospel according
to Mark and in chapter 4 a warning that we are to take heed what
we hear in verse 24. In verse 23 we read, If any man
have ears to hear, let him hear. And in the letters to the churches,
in the revelation after each of those letters, if any man,
if any have ears to hear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. And so he says
here, and he said unto them, take heed what ye hear. With what measure ye made, it
shall be measured to you and unto you that hear. shall more
be given. And so there are many things
that we may hear. And when we think of what blessing
comes through hearing, what warning, what teaching, what instruction,
how we need to take heed what we hear. And not just think,
well, we can just listen to this and that. and it not affect us,
it not touch us. And if we do hear the truth, we will be dealt with according
to what we have heard. It is not only a privilege, but
also a solemn responsibility where we hear the word of truth. There are many in this world
that have not heard it, they have creation and so they are
without excuse. But where we have the word of
God, then we are to take heed what we hear and that we are
to deal faithfully with that. And then the last one, the Lord
warns in Mark 8 of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of Herod. in verse 15 of chapter 8, and
he charged them saying, take heed, beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod. And then he clarifies
it later on, and they understood that he spoke to them of the
doctrine. So there are two doctrines there,
really the doctrine of the religious world, which symbolised by the
Pharisees, and of the profane world of Herod. And as we go
through this world, we have the sacred word of God that the Lord
says, take heed of the teaching of false religions and false
teachers. And on the other hand, take heed
of the teaching of the world, of the world that hates God and
the things of God. Take heed on these two sides. And there we have the Word of
God as a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, the words
that the Lord has spoken to us. May we seek them. You know, one
of the great things in the Reformation, the church before the Reformation,
They took and they believed what the church was telling them.
And the church didn't want the people to have the Word of God,
so they could tell them all manner of traditions and manner of things. But when the Reformation came,
the great point of the Reformation was the Word of God was available
to the common people, and they could read it themselves. and
that they could escape the delusions and deceit that were being taught
them by the official church. May we bless the Lord for the
word, take heed to it and not be deceived, and be blessed in
the Lord Jesus Christ to hear the gospel, to know the gospel,
that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, and that
there is none other name given among men whereby we must be
saved but in the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust in his death, him putting
away our sin, and his perfect life of obedience as to being
our acceptance before the throne at last. It is in the Lord Jesus
Christ and in the good news of salvation that we shall escape
the wrath to come and to be found spotless before the throne. It
is not our works but faith alone in what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done and what he has taught. May the Lord bless the word to
us. Amen.