Well, join me in your Bibles
this morning in Luke, the 21st chapter, as we continue in our
ongoing study in the Gospel of Luke. And last time we were together,
we dealt primarily, predominantly, with the destruction of the temple
that Jesus foretold there in verse 5 through 9. And we'll
kind of take up in the middle of that and then read on down
through the close of the chapter because it's kind of all related
here in context. So beginning in verse 7, after
he remarked about the temple being tore down in Luke 21, 7,
then they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these
things be? And what sign will there be when
these things shall come to pass? And he said, Take heed that ye
be not deceived, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am
Christ. And the time draweth near, go
ye not therefore after them." You know, it would just be a
good idea if she just underlined the things that he says. He deals with all these questions
and things. So, number one, be not deceived
and don't go after those. But when the time, or when you
shall hear of wars and commotions, Be not terrified. We could underline
that. That's what he's telling the
church. Don't go after those guys. Fear
not. Don't be terrified. For these
things must first come to pass, but the end is not by and by.
Underline that part. Then he said unto them, nation
shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. Well,
that was pretty much going on from Cain and Abel and from the
beginning of time. Earthquakes shall be in diverse
places and famines and pestilences, fearful sites and great signs
shall there be from heaven. But before all these, they shall
lay their hands on you and persecute you. delivering you up to the
synagogues and into prisons, and being brought before kings
and rulers for my name's sake. So Paul was involved in a lot
of that. And it shall turn to you for a testimony. It'll be
up to you to be a testimony about the gospel in spite of all this
and in view of it. Settle it therefore in your hearts
not to meditate before what you shall answer. You know, that's
something we like to do when we're in our human nature. We like to kind of pre-think
things out. Well, what if somebody says this
to me? What will I say? And especially about the gospel,
we're always trying to concoct scenarios whereby we might be
able to interject something. But he says, you know what? I'll
take care of that. Settle in your hearts not to
meditate before what you'll answer, for I'll give you a mouth and
wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay
or resist. And you shall be betrayed by
both parents and brethren and kinsfolk and friends, and some
of you shall they cause to be put to death." Well, that's comforting
words. You know, a lot of the religious
stuff is like, if you become a Christian, nothing bad is ever
going to happen. He says, "...some of you they'll
cause to put to death, and you shall be hated of all men for
my name's sake. But there shall not a hair of
your head perish." Underline that part. In spite of all the
things that may come to pass. in the view of the Lord, not
a hair of your head shall perish. In your patience possess ye your
souls. And when you see Jerusalem compassed
with armies, then you know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea
flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of
it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter
thereinto. We mentioned that at the time
that in 70 AD when Jerusalem was sacked, there was like Passover
was going on much the same, about the same week that we're celebrating
this week. Three million Jews maybe in Jerusalem
come there to celebrate the Passover and all of a sudden the army
surround the place and cut them off. For these be the days of vengeance,
that all things which are written may be fulfilled. And there was
plenty written about the things that were going to transpire.
Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in
those days, for there shall be great distress in the land, and
wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge
of the sword, and shall be led away captive unto all nations,
and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles till the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." You notice that sometimes he
says ye, and sometimes he says they. Underline that. And there shall be signs in the
sun, and the moon, and the stars, and upon the earth, distress
of nations, with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring, and
men's hearts failing them for fear, and looking after those
things which are coming up on the earth, for the powers of
heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son
of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when
these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up
your heads for your redemption draweth nigh. You can underline
that word redemption because that plays a key part in this
whole block of scripture here. Redemption is a key ingredient
here. And he spake to them a parable,
behold the fig tree and all the trees. When they shoot forth
and you see and you know of yourselves that the summer is now nigh at
hand. We're kind of experiencing that
here in our neighborhood right now. Buds are starting to pop
out on the trees. So likewise, ye, when you see
these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is
nigh at hand. And verily I say unto you, this
generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
And take heed to yourself, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged
with surfeiting and drunkenness. Hangover is what that word surfeiting
means. And cares of this life and that
day come upon you unaware. For as a snare shall it come
upon all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch
you, therefore, and pray always that you may be accounted worthy
to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand
before the Son of Man. And in the daytime he was teaching
in the temple, and at night he went out in a boat in the mount
that is called the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early
in the morning to him in the temple for to hear him. So it's
quite a lot of prophetic utterances there by the Lord. So we're going to kind of go
through this and see how much we get through in the time that
we have. But I guess the title of the message would be, Signs
of the End Times Not. So then as now, men come up and
add two and two and come up with five sometimes. This particular
narrative is pretty much covered in Mark, Luke, and Matthew, and
some have a little bit more, and some have pretty much the
same thing. Matthew adds a little bit more
to it. the disciples in Matthew said, He's talking about the temple.
He said, the temple's going to be torn down and not one stone's
going to be left on another. And they said, well, what are
the signs of this coming to pass and the end of the world? So
they added a clause into there that they just made an assumption
there. And then they try to, as Norm
says, they try to gather things together to to justify that and
rationalize it. And so, it wasn't in there. And so, it's hard to accept what
the Gospel records when you have a preconceived notion of what's
to happen and based on a flawed mindset that's corrupted by sin
and the fall. That just messes everything up. Jesus sets the tone and the truth
for all that He's about to declare in verse 8 as we mentioned. He
says, take heed that you be not deceived. Don't be deceived. You know the
truth. And so, don't let people come
in and add things and make assumptions and do things and say things
that really are not scriptural. And he says, and don't go after
them. There's always someone wanting
you to attend this or attend that. And sometimes when you
go to those things, you're encouraging that type of thing and you're
accepting of it. You know, the term deceived is
a word that warns against roaming from truth, safety, and virtue. So don't do that. Don't roam
away from the truth of the gospel. Don't roam away from the safety
that's in Christ and the virtue that is His. You know, the destruction
of the temple did occur just as Christ said it would. The
Jewish revolt of 66 AD that resulted from some Roman
causes where they Caligula proclaimed himself a
god, and he ordered that his image be set up in all the places
of worship in the Roman Empire. And the Jews just said, No, we're
not doing that. And they kind of revolted against
that, and he ordered them all annihilated because of that,
but he died before it got a chance to be fulfilled, so that didn't
occur then. They also, that was Caligula
that decreed himself a god. The temple was robbed by the
governor of Rome about that same time in the first century, the
Roman governor Florus. He just went in the temple and
stole a lot of silver out of there. That miffed them. And then they were being taxed
out of existence. And then the final straw was
the Romans eliminated the Jewish people's ability to pick their
own high priest. They said, we'll assign a person
to be the high priest. And so they picked one that was
kind of politically aligned with them, that would kind of keep
things going their way ideologically. So those things kind of congealed
together to cause the Jewish people to revolt in 66 AD. And by 70 AD, Vespasian surrounded
the city and besieged it for months. And it was awful. There was widespread famine and
looting and pillaging. And you know, you think, well,
I have my safety store of groceries down in the basement. And then
a big group of thugs come in with swords and poke you in the
neck with it and say, tell us where your big stash of groceries
is. And then they just take it from
you. And you can read about it in Josephus if you want. But
it was just awful beyond imagination. They were throwing bodies over
the wall. There were so many people dying from disease and
starvation and assault and various things. They just couldn't deal with
all the bodies. Three million people being in that city. They
just chucked them over the wall, and the Roman general just shocked
him. It was so awful. And they were
used to some pretty horrendous things. So, you know, because
the destruction of the temple did, in fact, physically occur,
and it's been documented, Men through time have kind of taken
that same idea and put a literal application to the rest of the
text here in Matthew with an eye to an eschatology that aims
to drive people to Christianity through an element of fear. If we can know when Jesus is
coming, we can tell people, you got till this day to get right
with Christ. And it takes it from a When we
look at redemption, it takes the causation of salvation away
from Him and just makes Him an accessory. And instead of Him
paying your ransom, is what that word redemption means, it becomes,
well, He opened a checking account, but it's up to you to put some
money in it and write the check to the right person. Anyway, not to go down that rabbit
hole too far here, but as we look at these verses, he's just
saying, here's stuff that's been happening all since the beginning
of time and it's going to happen until time ends, until the last
sheep is saved. And he says, there's got to be
wars and rumors of wars. But to the church, he says, be
not terrified. The end is not by and by. So
all the times that people say, oh, there's wars everywhere and
that's a sign of the end times, not. There's always, the Jewish
people were in bondage to the Romans at this very time. And
before that, it was the Babylonians and Assyrians and Egyptians. And there's always been that. Calamities are going to happen. Men's hearts failing them, verse
26 says, men's hearts failing them for fear and looking after
those things which are coming on the earth. You know, that's
what they're looking at. That's what they're looking for.
They're looking for some kind of physical solution to a spiritual
issue. Their hearts are failing them
because all these things, scary things are happening. But Jesus
says, be ye not terrified. I'm telling you that these things
are happening and are going to happen. He says, you know what he said
to the church there? He said, there shall not a hair on your
head perish. So physically doesn't mean you
might not be killed, because he goes on to say that here in
a little bit, that some of you are going to be betrayed, some
of you are going to be persecuted, some of you are going to be killed.
So we have to draw a line there between what's physically may
happen and what eternally and spiritually may be a result in
spite of or because of that. It's interesting that he says
all these things are going to happen and men's hearts are going
to be failing them. Well, just seven years before
Jerusalem was sacked, Mount Vesuvius blew up. And you all know what happened
at Pompeii. That whole place was just... decimated, destroyed. They found
all these places where there were people in the ash and their
bodies disintegrated and they left a cavity there and they
were able to fill those with plaster and they showed all these
people that were killed during that eruption in these various
conditions of how they fell and were buried in ash. Some of them were killed by other
parts of the seismic activity, earthquakes. Another interesting
thing happened in 1815. We had the eruption of Krakatoa,
which lasted for months and months and months. And it put so much
ash into the air. And the ash particles were smaller
than a micron, which is, I think a human hair is like 100 microns. So these particles of ash were
one micron, a little bit smaller than one micron. And it just
filled the atmosphere. And it was recorded that the
moon looked blue because of that, because of the ash. And the sun
had a reddish, more of a red tint to it than the moon. And so all kinds of observations
were made that were out of the ordinary and say, ooh, look,
there's a blue moon. and a red moon and red sun and
all kinds of things like that. So, you know, 36,000 people were
killed during that eruption. And so 20, I think in the Pompeii,
so between 20 and 136,000. So that's a kind of a wide margin,
but a lot of people, enough to be noticeable. enough that it was widely looked
at. So verse 27 seems to be largely
incorrectly interpreted to give an indication that these signs
that Jesus said would not be signs of His imminent return
in judgment. They interpret it to say, oh
yeah, when we see this stuff happen, look out. You better get right with God
before next Tuesday. Since we've been coming to church
here, I don't remember how many years
back, but down in California, there was a guy that convinced
everybody that the end is coming and put up big billboards and
got everybody to send him all their money so he could put up
more billboards. He's probably retired in the
Bahamas now. It didn't happen. In verse 27, He says, "...and
then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power
and great glory." And even though it seems like what is here described
in verse 25 through 28 deal with those things, it deals with the
redemption of the church and not end times judgment. So let's
go back and read that section again and then read a few scriptures
which really more closely reflect what is said here with an underlying
redemption as being the main theme. He says, your redemption
draweth nigh. And redemption is defined as
ransom, a deliverance paid in full. So when did that occur?
You have to say, when did redemption actually occur? When was my ransom
paid? When was the deliverance accomplished? And so in Luke 21, 25, there
should be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars
and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity and
the sea and the waves roaring. Men's hearts, failing them for
fear and looking after all those things which are coming on the
earth, for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall
they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great
glory. When these things begin to come to pass, then look up
and lift your heads. Your redemption draweth nigh. your redemption is in Christ.
Your redemption was finished in His work on the cross. Well,
you know, if we look at a scripture and we compare some of the things
that were just written in the block that we just read with
what's coming up in Luke chapter 23 when the crucifixion takes
place, it was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over
all the earth until the ninth hour. Well, that is not the normal
time of day when darkness comes upon the face of the earth. And the sun was darkened, and
the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And behold, in
Matthew 27, it says, Behold, the veil of the temple was rent
in twain from top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and
rocks rent. So there were some physical things
that happened there that got people's attention. Rocks were
rent. Well, there was some kind of
a seismic activity there. And the earth did quake. And graves
were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose. And now the centurion, when the
centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus saw the
earthquake and those things that were done, they feared greatly,
saying, Truly, this was the Son of God. So there's kind of two
things that happen when the Spirit reveals some great truths and
some great things. There's some people that they
just look at those and say, oh man, the world is coming to an
end and all these physical things are bad and how can I get out
of that? And there's other ones that say,
this was the Son of God. In Acts 1, verse 6, when they therefore
were come together, The disciples would come together
there in Acts chapter 1, and the resurrected Lord appeared
to them. They asked Him, saying, Lord,
will Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
So even those disciples that were there, and He appeared to
them in resurrected form, They still didn't get it, and
he's about to solve those issues for them and take care of those
misconceptions. But that's kind of how they went
into it going in. They said, we're still looking
for a physical deliverance from the Romans here, and we want
the The old kingdom of David resurrected and set back up.
And they forgot about all the bad things that went on with
all the kings that did evil in the sight of the Lord. And all
the sacrifices of the animals that they used that didn't meet
the standard that the Lord had said. The lame, the halt, the
blind, the maimed, the crippled. All the things that didn't portray
the Lord. He said, you've made my father's house a prayer to
the nations, a den of thieves. So a lot of things were going
on in that temple that every vestige of Christ had been stripped
away from it. Every vestige that told of grace,
every vestige that told of the sovereignty of God had been ripped
apart. had taken over and gold-plated
it and made it a reflection of himself there. And the Lord says,
you know what? The Edomite guys are cursed.
I don't like them. So when they were come together
in Acts 1, verse 6, they asked him, saying, Lord, will thou
at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said
unto them, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons
which the Father has put in his own power. But you shall receive
power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and
Samaria and into the uttermost part of the earth." Well, you know what it said back
in Luke chapter 23, verse 21-23? It said, "...and it shall turn
to you for a testimony." He said, you're going to be a witness
of the gospel. You're going to declare the gospel
to every nation. In Acts 1.9 he says, And when
he spoke these things, while they beheld, he was taken up,
and a cloud received him out of their sight. It says in verse
27 of our Scripture today in our text, And then they shall
see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and
glory. Now that word coming, when I
look that up in Strong, sometimes it means coming, sometimes it
means to go. So however you perceive that,
some people saw Him taken up into a cloud and He said, I'm going to be at the
right hand of the Father in great power and great glory." So, another
thing he said was in verse 32, this generation shall not pass
away until all be fulfilled. So all those things that he lists
here were things that most of those people were going to survive
to see happen. And much of the eschatology regarding
the end of the world here is kind of connected to this and
then tied into Daniel chapter 9 and 11. And there's formulas
based on the 1290 days from the end of the sacrifice to the abomination
of desolation. Well, maybe those weren't things
that were like physical things that we would think of in the
way that religion presents them to us a lot of times. Who knows when the last true
sacrifice was made in that temple? When the last sacrifice of a
lamb without spot, without blemish. Who knows when that was? He says,
you know, it's not for you to know the days that the Father
has put in His power. But He says it's going to be
1290 days from the end of the sacrifice to the abomination
of desolation. Well, an abomination is just
an idol. And anything that's not a true
worship of Christ is an idol. And the worst idols that we have
are ourselves. So maybe we're just looking at
those things in the wrong light of what they might represent. In Luke 13, 35, Jesus says, you
killed the prophets. You killed them all. You stoned
them. Which were the ones that you didn't stone? You killed the ones that brought
you the gospel. You made a mockery out of true
worship. You profaned the temple. Boy, you read Ezekiel. You read
Jeremiah, Lamentations. It talks about the awful wreck
that they made out of... They took a thing that was supposed
to represent God, and sovereignty, and grace, and salvation, and
the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He does for His church, His people,
and just turned it into an abomination. Oh, where's that word come up?
So, you know what he said in verse 35 of Luke 13? He says, Therefore your house is
left unto you desolate. Now, certainly Jesus foretold
that times would get worse and that many Christians would suffer
untold torments and death, and we don't want to make light of
that. I've got a book at home called Fox's Book of Martyrs,
and it's big. And it's got tiny print in it,
and it's like this thick. I read like one page of that,
and I just couldn't do it anymore. the things that they put those
people through trying to get them to recant. And one thing
that we've always said and that Norm's always said from here
is that once you know grace, you can't unknow it. And they
can't make you unknow it by torture and various ways of inflicting
damage to your physically. And Jesus said, some of you are
going to be betrayed and persecuted and killed. But not a hair on
your head is going to perish. So we have to reconcile those
two things spiritually and say, you know, we just don't look
at those things physically the same way that the Lord looks
at them. And we have to apply an eternal
and a spiritual understanding there. As far as eschatology, when you
hear of wars and commotions, don't be terrified. These things
must come to pass, but the end is not by and by. That means
directly or soon. Not going to happen right away. But, you know, men keep asking.
The Bible's got a lot of scriptures that show where men keep asking,
even the disciples were, when's the sign of, when are these things
going to come to pass? We need to know so we can get
ready. You know, it kind of reminded
me of my dad when they were retired and they lived over at the coast
and we moved down here from up north. And we used to go down
there, kind of help them out and visit with them on the weekends.
And the day that we were supposed to come, my dad, he'd always
be out in the front yard with a hose watering so he could see
down the road. He was looking for us because
He was looking forward to seeing us. And He was looking for us.
And when we would drive down the street and turn into the
driveway, He'd get a big smile on His face and turn the water
off and be happy. And you know, that's what the
Lord says. We look for Him the second time,
not in fear, not in trepidation of anything that
might go wrong, that might happen. The time's not revealed in Scripture
according to the purpose of God, and in every age there's men
trying to solve or who claim to have solved the mystery which
God has not made solvable. They predict the end of the world,
and then they accompany that with the usual pleas for funding
to get the word out. Sometimes they introduce a guilt
scheme to get you to come and join up. by declaring the end is here
and you can't take it with you so send it to me and we'll put
it to good use. These schemes leave out and they
disannul the very foundation of the gospel that Christ died
for sinners. The gospel is not that the end
is near, therefore it's time to get right with God. God chose by the foolishness
of preaching to save them whom he causes to believe. not by
fear of hell and being left behind and all the other myriad of schemes
that we find in religion. The Gospel declares that all
whom the Father gave Christ in the covenant of grace shall come
to Him. And him that cometh, he shall
in no wise cast out. The Gospel has to come in power
and in the Holy Spirit upon everyone whom the Lord has covenanted
to save. He's not in the business of using
fear tactics to attract membership in the church. We don't find
that. We find that the gospel was preached
and the Gentiles said, we'll hear more of that. Not that the
end is coming, but Christ died for sinners. We'll hear more
of that. And the Lord added to them daily
such as should be saved. The Lord added to them. His word is always to his church,
there shall not a hair of your head perish. Be not afraid. Fear ye not. Be not terrified. All these words of comfort. In
Thessalonians, if you want to go back, we don't have time to
go there today, but if you want to go and read some descriptions
about when the Lord comes back and gathers up his people, it's
just kind of a He's coming. Let's get our garden hoses out
and water the lawn while we're looking for Him. And He says,
comfort ye one another with these words. God has not appointed
us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Scriptures are exact and
certified. about everything that they've
written. But in our application here,
we need to look at the following. Is it possible to frighten a
nonbeliever into salvation? Well, you know what it says in
Psalms, the fool said in his heart, there is no God. Well, if there's no fear of God in
the unregenerate, then trying to save them based on that logic
is futile. They don't believe in Him. They
don't believe that there's any judgment. They don't believe
any of that stuff. So, there's no fear of God before
His eyes. And that word is, there's no
alarm. There's no dread. There is none.
So how can you preach a gospel of alarm and dread to someone
that doesn't have that and expect them to respond to it? It's always been that way. It'll
always continue to be that way until the last elect sheep is
brought to Christ by the declaring of the Gospel to every nation.
That's what he says in all these versions, these Mark, Matthew,
and Luke. You'll be my witnesses unto the
uttermost ends of the earth. And at some point, I will have caused one of my
sheep to be born somewhere, someplace, at some time. And we'll intersect
the gospel with them. The Spirit will cause them to
believe. And they will come to a saving
knowledge of Christ. Not this other stuff. In Matthew
24, 14, it said, This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached
in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall
the end come." So it's really funny that, you know, we're about
out of time here and we've kind of gone through our notes, but places that were sending out
missions and people to preach the gospel, Now the places where
they sent people, there's the gospel being preached, and they're
sending people back to those original places because there's
no gospel there anymore. And there may be sheep there. But as we mentioned in our Lord
of the Harvest thing, the Lord knows where His sheep are, and
He will arrange things. and we don't have to worry about
that. So that's the end of our lesson there on the end times
not. So until next time, be free. Comfort you with these