mark chapter thirteen this is a passage of scripture
which in some ways is uh... quite difficult is mostly difficult
because of the error that has been promulgated down through
the ages especially in the last couple hundred years concerning
the things that the Lord is teaching in this passage of scripture.
I don't claim to have every answer to every question that can be
brought about these matters that the Lord is speaking about here,
but I believe if we look at the context of the passage and similar
passages in other books of the gospel, that we can come to a
pretty clear understanding of what it is that the Lord is saying
here. Now, there are many schools of thought about the things surrounding
what have been termed by many the end times. Now, to me that
is kind of a misnomer when men talk about the end times as though
that's something yet to come and we're waiting for the end
times. Now the Lord, when the Lord came,
it is the last time. John said this is the last time. There's not coming another age
in the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
the world to fulfill a purpose. And that time is now. And so the Lord set out here
to tell his disciples concerning some things that they needed
to know. Now keep in mind as we read this that these disciples
are Jews. They have been raised in Judaism. They've been taught the scriptures. And so their mind and their thought
process in his presence are quite a bit
different than ours is, knowing what we know and not having been
raised as Jews of that period of time. And so it is that we
see them, coming into the temple, and as he went out of the temple,
one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner
of stones and what buildings are here. And Jesus answering
said unto him, seest thou these great buildings? There shall
not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.
And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives over against the temple,
Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, tell
us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign when
all these things shall be fulfilled? And Jesus answering them began
to say, take heed lest any man deceive you. For many shall come
in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. And when
ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars, be ye not troubled,
for such things must needs be, but the end shall not be yet. For nations shall rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes
in divers places. There shall be famines and troubles.
These are the beginnings of sorrows. But take heed to yourselves,
for they shall deliver you up to the councils, and in the synagogues
ye shall be beaten. And ye shall be brought before
rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them.
And the gospel must first be published among all nations.
But when they shall lead you and deliver you up, take no thought
beforehand what ye shall speak. Neither do ye premeditate whatsoever
shall be given to you in that hour that speak ye, for it is
not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. Now the brother shall
betray the brother to death, and the father, the son, the
children shall rise up against their parents and shall cause
them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all
men for my name's sake, but he that shall endure to the end,
the same shall be saved. But when ye shall see the abomination
of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it
ought not, let him that readeth understand, then let them that
be in Judea flee to the mountains. And let him that is on the housetop
not go down to the house, neither entereth therein to take anything
out of his house. And let him that is in the field
turn not back again for to take up his garment. But woe to them
that are with child and to them that give suck in those days. And pray ye that your flight
be not in the winter. For in those days shall be affliction,
such as was not from the beginning of the creation, which God created
unto this time neither shall be. And except that the Lord
had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved. But for
the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the
days. And then if any man shall say
to you, lo, here is Christ, or lo, he is there, believe him
not. For false Christs and false prophets
shall rise and shall show signs and wonders to seduce, if it
were possible, even the elect. But take ye heed, behold, I have
foretold you all things. But in those days after that
tribulation, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not
give her light. And the stars of heaven shall
fall and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And
then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with
great power and glory. And then he shall send his angels
and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from
the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
Now learn a parable of the fig tree. When her branch is yet
tender and put forth leaves, ye know that the summer is near.
So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to
pass, know that it is nigh, even at the door. Now this is a very
important verse here. Verily I say unto you that this
generation shall not pass till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my word shall not pass away. But of that day and that hour
knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither
the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch, and pray,
for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as
a man taking a far journey, who left his house and gave authority
to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the
porter to watch. Watch ye therefore. "'For you
know not when the master of the house cometh, "'at even or at
midnight, "'or at the cock crowing or in the morning, "'lest coming
suddenly he find you sleeping. "'And what I say unto you, I
say unto all, watch.'" Now, I believe very clearly, it is
clear to me, it has not always been clear to me, but it is clear
to me in the present time, that what the Lord is speaking to
his disciples about here in this passage of scripture is something
that came to pass in their lifetime. He plainly said, this generation
shall not pass until all these things be fulfilled. Now for
us to sit here and say that there are not some difficulties as
we look at this would be wrong. because there are good men in
all ages that have studied the scriptures and have had varying
viewpoints about some of the things that are written in this
passage of scripture. But I believe that we can say
that the consensus of men who I believe are sound in their
teaching from 200 years back. All pretty much look at this
passage of scripture as I believe the Lord has shown these things
to me in my limited understanding. It is only really in the last
two hundred years, not really even that far, that some of the
wilder speculative theories about what these things mean have been
brought into the awareness of men. Of course, a lot of people
use this passage of scripture and the one in the book of Matthew in chapter
24 to teach what they call the secret rapture. Now there are
several problems with that. Number one being that I don't
believe this passage of scripture has anything to do with the future
time when the Lord shall split the heavens and shall come back
to receive that which is his in the day of the resurrection.
Now I do believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again.
and power and glory. But I believe that the power
and glory that he's speaking of here in this passage of scripture
that he is coming in and these disciples will see it is in the
evident and obvious destruction of Jerusalem, the seat of Judaism. Now the Lord, when He came, He
came to establish His kingdom and He did so in the earth. His
kingdom has been established and He is presently building
His church as He sees fit. But you have to understand that
for thousands of years prior to his coming, the Lord set forth
this, what we call the Old Testament, gave it to the Jews, chiefly
to the Jews. What advantage did it have to
the Jews? Chiefly to them were committed the oracles of God.
God sent the prophets to the nation of Israel. He chose them
out. of all the nations in the earth.
But keep in mind they were chosen out of the nations of the earth.
They were people chosen out from among the people of the earth. The elect of God were chosen
in Christ from before the foundation of the world. So there's a difference
in the election of the Jews and in the election of the people
of God, for not all Israel is of Israel. Now the Lord has a
people of every kindred, tribe, and tongue in the world. Now
this was not made known from the very beginning. This is a
mystery, Paul says, that was kept hidden from the beginning. The Lord didn't set this forth
because he would manifest His glory and His purpose in His
particular love for a people. And in the teaching of the world,
He would manifest that to the world in the nation of Israel. That He would show His love for
His true elect people by His selection and love manifested
towards a nation of Israel. But keep in mind that everything
that the Lord said to Israel was based on conditional promises. The Lord said, do this and live. He gave them the law. He said,
if you keep all these things, He says, I'll bless you. Well,
guess what happened? They didn't keep them, did they?
They couldn't keep them. Why? We read it in the New Testament
when the Lord, he said the law was weak. Not in the decree. I mean, the decree of God is
perfect, it's just, it's holy. But where's the weakness of the
law manifested? It's manifested in man's inability
to keep it. And because man is weak in the
flesh, God sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh and
for sin. And so what a glorious thing,
dear Brandon, what a privilege we have as the sons of God to
behold the work of Christ in redeeming his people. And so
the Lord would set this forth. Now here's these disciples as
they came and as they went out of the temple, they said, Master,
Oh, Master, look at this tremendous structure here, this belt. This
is the seed of our religion. This is a wonderful thing. The
Lord didn't say it wasn't a wonderful thing, did he? I mean, he was
the one that designed wherever stone in that temple went. He
had it raised up in magnificence so they might see it. But he
says, I'm telling you what, He said, as magnificent as this
is. And the nation of Israel in the
earth as the Lord loved them as a carnal nation and set his
love upon them and manifested his care for them down through
the ages, that was a magnificent thing. But he said, all of this
is gonna be torn down. He said this temple is going
to be raised to the ground. There's not going to be one stone
left upon another. Now according to Josephus, and
we're not bringing in Josephus as being any great authority,
but he is a man who recorded some of the earliest history
and he lived in this period of time and saw these things and
had testimony of people who did, you know, live through this period
of time that the Lord is speaking about here, which occurred about
70 years after the birth of Christ. And He said that it literally
was a true thing that there was not one stone left upon another. That they completely tore this
thing down. Now that was a stupendous undertaking. Now you can imagine the anger
of the Jews at such a thing as that. I mean, this was a period
of great turmoil and bloodshed with the Romans oppressing the
Jews and the Jews fighting back. And ultimately, the destruction
of the temple occurred. And the Jewish nation, millions,
according to Josephus, were slain by the Romans during these conflicts.
It was a very bloody time. It was an awful time, as he describes
here. I guess, whenever we think about
this, We have to think about the things leading up to these
things. You see, the Romans were oppressive
from the beginning in their conquest of the Jews, but they became
more oppressive as time went on. And, of course, there arose
among many of the Jews people who were great political leaders. wanting to foment rebellion against
the Roman authorities. And the Romans would find them
and put them down. And many came in their name saying,
I'm the deliverer, I'm the Messiah sent from the Lord. The Lord
said, don't pay any attention to them. Now, what we see from
the perspective, we say, well, how could that be that there
could be any question about these things? Because you see, you
have to understand how steeped in this concept that these Jews
were that the Lord was sending a Messiah to deliver them. The
only deliverance they could perceive was a physical deliverance from
the oppressors that they had, because that was the way the
Lord delivered them down through the ages, was it not? But that
was not the redemption that the Lord spoke about in the prophets
of old, but this was the redemption that Christ would come and bring.
And so, the thing, if you get nothing else out of this, understand
that the Lord is setting forth His preeminence. He said, if
any come speaking and saying, I am Christ, or I'm speaking
in the name of the Lord, don't believe it. He said don't be
turned aside by any of this because I'm telling you what the truth
is. He said there is coming a destruction upon all of this that's going
to lay it into the dust and it is never more going to rise again. Now there's many, I know, like
I say, in the last couple hundred years, there's been a kind of
a groundswell of support for the idea that the Lord's gonna
raise up Israel again, and they're gonna once again be this magnificent
nation, and then the Lord's gonna come back and set up His throne
in Jerusalem and all that stuff. Listen, the Lord said, I'm gonna
destroy this. I'm gonna lay it to the ground.
It's never more going to rise again because Christ, and Christ
alone is going to be exalted as the deliverer of his people.
There's not gonna be a re-institution of the sacrifices. Now I don't know what men may
do, but you can be sure of this, the Lord is not directed the
sacrifices of the temple to be re-instituted for any reason
that has to do with eternal things. Now I don't know, you know, what
the Lord may do. And I don't know that the Lord
has told us everything he may do yet or what may occur, but
I do know this, that there is one place of salvation
for any man who is in the earth today and that is in Jesus Christ. There's salvation in no other.
There's no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must
be saved but the name of Christ. That's it. And they said to him, tell us
when these things shall be. He said, take heed that no man
deceive you. You know, deception is a terrible
problem because a man that's deceived doesn't know it. Because if you knew you were
deceived, you wouldn't be deceived, would you? But you see, Satan delights in
deception. That's his chief go-to. I mean, isn't that what he did
with Eve? He deceived her. That's what the scripture says,
she was deceived. Adam wasn't deceived, but she was. And so he's about that business
today. And he said, take heed lest any
man deceive you. Now I'm telling you, as Paul
said, If any man come preaching any other message than Jesus
Christ and Him crucified, he is a false prophet. There's no other message that
God sends gospel preachers into the world to do than to exalt
the name of Jesus Christ. There's no place for exalting
men, lifting up men, putting men in positions of power and
hierarchy and ability over men. But the Lord, the church has
one head, and that head is Christ. And he would have us to worship
him and him alone. And all of his children are to
worship him. And there's only one way he can
be worshipped, and that's in spirit and truth. He can't be
worshipped as men decide to do it. And I think if there's one
thing that would, that has happened among professing Christians in
our day, and when I say professing Christians, I'm not saying they're
all true believers. I'm not saying they're not true
believers, but they at least profess. But it is the idea that
they can decide how they will worship the Lord. The
Lord said, there's only one way I can be worshiped. That's in
spirit and truth. You can't devise means whereby
to get people to come into the kingdom of God. Now there's plenty
of that going on today. You know, the idea is, well,
if we can get enough, do some things, you know, that entertain
folks and get them interested in coming to the meeting, we
can bring them into the kingdom of God. So we'll start us a softball
league, or we'll have a harvest festival, or we'll do all kinds
of things that you can do. We want something for the kids.
Oh, the Lord said, suffer the little children to come unto
me. But he didn't say go out and make carnal attractions to
bring kids in, so that you can get their parents in, so that
you can build a great edifice under my name. He said, worship
me in spirit and truth. And so it is, I don't know how
he even got off on that, but anyway. The Lord said, take heed that
no man deceive you. There's much deception in the
world today. There's many good things as men
would think of them. How many churches do we know
of that have family life centers? Now family is the cornerstone
of society, no doubt about it. Family is, what a blessed privilege
it is to have family. But the church is not about family. Now, the family of God, we are
the family of God, and may the Lord give us grace to have families
wherein we love one another, we teach one another the word
of God, we raise our children in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord. May that be so. But sometimes people get off
going down the wrong train. And they think that by having
all these different things that can attract families, that they
can build the kingdom of God. That's a deception. It turns men's eyes away from
what the truth is. And so the Lord said, be careful.
And I've just touched on those things. I don't even know why
that came into my mind, but it did. For many shall come in my name.
There will be many that are deceptions. You see, there are many deceivers.
All you gotta do is turn on the TV, especially late at night. If you wanna see some deception,
you turn on the TV late at night on some of these channels where
some of these guys are preaching. And there's more error being
promulgated in the name of Christ then you can't imagine. I mean,
it's just mind boggling. And I guarantee you every bit
of it boils down to trying to raise money to carry on what
they're doing. Now, if you've got to raise money
to carry on what you're doing, you're doing the wrong thing. The Lord doesn't need your money.
He doesn't need anything you have. He's able to do exactly
according to His will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth. And He'll raise up stones to
praise Him if He sees fit to do it. And so, you know, when
men come telling you they got to have your money to keep on
doing what, or the Lord's gonna go out of business, and they
won't be able, you know, folks just gonna perish if you don't
help them out to help people. That's a deception. It's not
true. And when ye shall hear of wars
and rumors of wars, be not troubled, for such things must needs be,
but the end shall not be yet. Now, it is a true thing. Wars and rumors of wars have
continued through the earth from the very beginning, have they
not? I mean, Abraham, they went out and they fought wars. I mean,
they've been fighting wars ever since. And there'll be wars till
the Lord comes back. But he's telling them, a specific
thing here. He said there shall be wars and
rumors of wars because from that time, during that time, this
period of time he's talking about was great conflicts, one after
another. The Jews fighting the Romans,
the Romans killing the Jews, and just all kind of turmoil
going on. And he said there shall be earthquakes
in divers places, famines, troubles. These are beginnings of sorrows.
All these things would take place, but take heed to yourselves.
See there again, there's that thing. Watch, don't be deceived. Take heed to yourselves, for
they shall deliver you up to the councils, and ye shall be
beaten, and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my
sake for testimony against them. And the gospel must first be
published among all nations. Now, you know, anytime that you
see the word all in the scripture, you have to determine what it's
speaking about. I don't believe here that the
Lord is saying all nations in the sense of all the nations
that we know of. Because there was nations they
didn't know anything about. But he's talking about all nations.
He's saying in their context of what they understood. He said
the gospel shall be preached among all nations. Now keep in
mind that on the day of Pentecost that there were men of every
tribe of Israel came together, did you not? It was all the nations
of Israel. That was all those tribes and
all those different households that came together. And the gospel
was preached to all of them. They could not say, well, we
didn't know anything about this. And so the Lord said, and keep
in mind that during these persecutions of the children of Israel, they
were scattered abroad, and what did they do? Those believers
went forth preaching the gospel. And so there was a wide spread
of the gospel. Now, do we say that Everybody
became believers? No. Any more than everybody becomes
believers in the present time. But the Lord has His people. And He sends forth the Word of
God that they might believe. And they do. But they shall lead you. He said,
don't worry about what you're going to say when you're brought
before the council. You don't have to plan it out.
You don't have to have a speech ready. He said, I'll give you
what you need to say. And brother shall betray the
brother to death. Now, again, going back to Josephus,
he gives testimony that there was a lot of family betrayal
during this period of time. Because a lot of Christians were
considered to be the ones causing the trouble. They weren't really
the ones causing the trouble, but they were an easy target.
And the Jews said, well, man, here's a good chance to get rid
of these Christians. We'll turn them into the authorities. And brother, betrayed brother
unto death, father against the son, children rise up against
their parents. He said that was a widespread
thing. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. Men hate the word of God. Oh,
they don't hate most of what's being said today because there's
not much being said. You know, as long as you don't
mess with a man's God, He won't bother you. But see, when you start slaying
the God of man's free will, he'll get mad. When you tell men it's
not up to you, but it's up to God, they'll get angry. They don't like that. You can
tell men a lot of things. I mean, a lot of people, you
know, you hear a lot of preachers today. They'll preach about the
blood of the cross. They'll preach about the necessity
of believing in Jesus Christ. But then they'll come down to
the end and say, now, it's all up to you. And that man says,
okay, good. Well, whenever I get ready, I'll
believe. No. No, the Lord calls His children
unto Himself in a time which seems good to Him. And it's not
up to men, but it's up to Him. This is a message not well received. See, men like to hear that Christ
died for all men because they say, well, you're in the back
of my mind if I ever get ready. I know He's already paid the
price. I'll just come to Him. I'll say, well, Lord, I repent,
and buddy, I'm in. And so I can, that's the way
it'll be. But no, it's not that way. You see, when Jesus Christ
went to the cross, He paid for the sins of His people. And he
absolutely paid for them. And he calls his children unto
himself in his own time. He says, come unto me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. But see,
all men are not heavy laden. I've just been reading a fellow
that sent me a a message by a fellow by the name of Rolf Marner, which
I was familiar with Rolf Marner, but the title of the message
was, How God Gets Men Lost. Now, most people think everybody's
already lost. No, most people are not lost. I mean, you go out here in the
world, they don't think they're lost. I mean, you go to one of
these Baptist churches, you ask them if they're lost, oh no.
No, they're not lost. But I'm telling you this, until
the Lord brings a man to a place where he knows that he's lost, he'll never be saved. That's
the work of God. Bring a man down to that place.
See, that's the place that Job came, was he not? Job was an
upright man. He eschewed evil. He said many good things about
the Lord, but he said, He said, I never knew you. He said, I
thought I did. I heard about you. But he said,
now, man, I see it thee. And I abhor myself. And I repent
in dust and ashes. You see, that's where a man comes
when the Lord causes him to be lost. He said, Lord, woe is me. I can't go. I can't save myself. I can't believe. I can't do anything. Lord, help me. If you don't help
me, I'll perish. Even as Jonah, in the belly of
that fish, when he came to that place, he said, salvation's of
the Lord. He says, I can't do anything,
Lord. He said, I'm sitting here, I'm dying. I'm done for. I can't deliver myself. If you
don't help me, I won't be helped. And you see, that's where the
Lord must bring a man. And he does. Oh, thank God that
he does. See, he's not abandoned his children. Oh, sometimes, you know what
I mean? When you saw the Apostle Paul, when he was being, or when
he was Saul of Tarsus, and he was raised up, and he was in
the Sanhedrin, and he was getting letters of mark and reprisal
against the sons of God, and you would have looked at him,
and you'd say, man, he's done for. That man, he's going straight
to hell. But you see, the Lord who's rich
in mercy, with the great love wherewith he loved, even that
soul of Tarsus that breathed out threatenings and slaughters
against his own people, when it seemed good in his sight,
and he called him by his grace, and he rescued him. And Paul
never gave one moment's thought to the fact that he might be
lost, did he? He thought, man, I'm a Pharisee.
I'm as high up as you can get among the Jews. I'm, you know,
headed for the top. I'm doing great. But in a moment's
time, the Lord brought him down to his knees. And he said, oh,
Lord, who are thou? Oh, that the Lord might move
among us today. He might show us where we're
at. without Him, rather than we'll
perish without Him. Oh, that He might direct our
thoughts, our mind, our heart to call upon His name. He's the
Savior of sinners.