right this minute, right? That you have helped secure for us. Our gospel reading is from Luke chapter 21, verses 10 through 24. As we continue in our series in the gospel according to St. Luke, and where we find these wonderful words, these solemn words of our loving Lord. Then Jesus said to his disciples, nation will rise against nation. and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and in various places famines and pestilences, and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought even by parents. and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake, but not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance, you will gain your lives. 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, for these are days of vengeance to fulfill all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days. For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Let us look to our God once again in prayer. We thank you, our Father, for the gift of your Son and for the words he taught his disciples here. We thank you for Luke, who wrote these words, and the Holy Spirit, who led him to write them and who has kept them for our instruction. By the ministry of your Spirit, teach us now to be Jesus's faithful disciples. Going out, disciples left the temple and then gathered on the Mount of Olives. Jesus, as we saw last week, taught his disciples concerning the destruction of the temple. The temple, which was magnificent in its beauty, the temple which his disciples but rather with being faithful to his mission. No matter what happened, be faithful to my mission, he said, and what I've called you to do, to be my ambassadors of eternal life through grace in God's Son. Now having foretold the destruction of the temple, Jesus continued in his Olivet discourse, this conversation, this time of former glory and independence. How could he now be saying that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed? Once again, Jesus was calling them to think outside the box of their expectations concerning the identity and the mission and the salvation of the Messiah. He was calling them away from placing their hope in the temporal, not disregarding the importance of the temporal, what they did and what we do in the temporal matters for the eternal, but he's calling them not to place their ultimate hope in the temporal, but rather to place their hope in the eternal, the eternal Christ and the eternal salvation that he was bringing about for his people. Even as he foretold the destruction of the temple, he was prepared. First, Jesus foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem. And second, Jesus is preparing his followers For a new Jerusalem, an indestructible Jerusalem, the Roman Empire had experienced great peace. This was actually the early part of the era known as the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, a period of great peace and prosperity and expansion for the Roman Empire. But leading up to the rebellion of the Jews and the subsequent siege of Jerusalem, which began in April of the year 70 AD, there would be relative unrest. And in verse 11, Jesus said that there would be natural disasters that would be significant enough to serve as signs, to those who cared about what Jesus was saying, that the destruction of Jerusalem was near. Jesus then told his disciples in verse 12 that before the destruction of Jerusalem, which again happened in AD 70, they themselves would suffer for his sake. He had already warned them of this, calling them not to be terrified of it, but rather to rejoice in it. because their reward would be great as they endured it in both the religious and the civil realms of their day. But they were gonna be brought before these authorities, and Jesus said in verse 14, this will be an opportunity for you. This is gonna be an opportunity for you to bear witness about me. What a way to look at it. When you are being arrested, brought before religious and civil authorities and threatened with punishment and even death, it will be a platform from which you can speak for me. And of course, that's exactly what the apostles did time and time again. And what the saints throughout the ages have done in the midst of persecution and even facing death, they have been witnesses, literally in the Greek, bearing witnesses is from the Greek word from which we get our word martyr. They have been martyrs for Christ. They have been witnesses unto death for Christ. And Esther Tullian, the early church father, put it, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. When the evil forces that rule on this earth mow down God's saints, many, many more come up. from where their blood has been shed to the advancement of the kingdom. Jesus said in verses 14 and 15, don't worry about what you will say. That's very liberating. We're not as Christians called to worry about anything. Don't be anxious for anything, right? And here he says, when you're gonna be brought before these people, he says this to his disciples, don't be anxious about what you will say in that situation. Why? For one reason, every situation will be different, so you don't need this pre-packaged script that you're going to give. Jesus said, don't worry, be full of me, I will fill you with my word, I will fill you with authority, I'm gonna be alive, when all this is shaking out and I'm going to empower you by my spirit to be my witnesses even in the face of death. Maybe the hardest thing for these disciples to hear was what Jesus said in verse 16. You will be delivered up even by parents. That had to be very hard to hear. you're gonna be delivered up by parents and brothers and relatives and friends and some of you, they will put to death, you'll be hated by all, in other words, all these types of people and more for my name's sake. That had to be gut-wrenching for them to hear and of course, it is gut-wrenching when followers of Christ experience this. Persecution from their own family and friends because they stand with Jesus. And I know some of you have experienced such things. Persecution for simply loving Jesus and wanting to stand with him, follow him in what he has done and what he has taught. And as he foretold, some of the ones to whom he was speaking lost their very lives for him. So Jesus was saying, this period of persecution would begin to take place before Jerusalem would be destroyed. He said, beginning in verse 20 again, 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 of the country enter it. For these are days of vengeance to fulfill all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, for there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among the nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Jesus had repeatedly called his people, remember John's prologue, in which he said that the word became flesh, dwelt among us, he came to his own, but his own people, the Jewish people, did not receive him. But to those who did receive him, he gave the right to become called the Jewish people, including their leadership, to repent and believe in Him. He had wept more than once over Jerusalem and lamented their unbelief, their hardness of heart. He says, I would gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Oh, how I offered to do that for you. but you were not willing. He lamented over their hardness of heart towards his overtures of grace. As one minister put it, unbelief is pushing away the hand that seeks to bless you. It seeks to feed you. It's slapping away the hand that seeks to Show you grace. Jesus lamented the hardness of heart among the Jews, among the city of Jerusalem and its religious leaders there. He had warned them time and time again. of coming judgment because of their sins. Now he was warning his followers and those to whom they would relay his words over the intervening years of the temporal judgment that was coming upon Jerusalem. That when the armies began to gather around Jerusalem, they, that is people who took Jesus' word seriously, they needed to get out. This was not a drill. They needed to get out of the city. Of course, those who had not believed his words, who had always brushed off his words as nonsense or even heresy, they would remain in their sins, remain in Jerusalem, and perish. But notice again, Jesus's compassion. This is a stern warning, but again, notice the compassion of our Lord. I mean, the compassion is what drives the warning. He says, Just before his own crucifixion, now remember what's going on in his own soul as the shadow of the cross is lengthening over him and as he makes his way right to it, having set his face to go there. But right before his crucifixion, he's lamenting the plight of pregnant women and mothers of young children. who will be trapped in Jerusalem when the judgment comes. So he's thinking several decades down the road now of the plight of those who will be in Jerusalem when the judgment comes. The judgment on Jerusalem did come, as we mentioned, beginning in the spring of the year A.D. 70, when the Emperor Vespasian sent his son, General and future Emperor Titus, into Jerusalem to quell the rebellion of the Jews led by a group called the Zealots that grew and grew and grew from the time of Jesus' crucifixion. This rebellion of the Jews in Jerusalem. William Hendrickson described it this way. The siege began in April of the year AD 70 while Jerusalem was filled with Passover pilgrims. After the siege of about five months, the Romans finally overwhelmed the entire city. According to the historian Josephus, the total number of prisoners taken through the entire war was 97,000, while over one million perished during the siege. The war was inexcusably cruel. Not only was the temple given up to the flames, but the entire city, except three towers and a portion of the Western Wall, was leveled. By the thousands, aged men, women, regardless of their physical condition, and even little children, were murdered. Some of the prisoners were subsequently thrown to wild beasts. Others were sold into slavery, into all the nations. While a select number of the strongest and best-looking captives figured in the triumphal procession which Rome gave to the conquerors. For many, many years, no Jew was allowed to reside in or even to visit Jerusalem, which was made a pagan city. So with a heavy heart, indeed a broken heart, Jesus was warning his disciples of all that. He was warning his disciples of the coming destruction on the city of Jerusalem. And in the second place, by way of application this morning, Jesus, even in this, was preparing his followers for that which lasts. As he highlighted that which would not last, he's preparing them, by way of contrast, to that which would last. He was preparing his followers for a coming city, a new city, an indestructible Jerusalem. As we said last week, even as Jesus was foretelling the destruction of the temple, he was preparing his disciples to be part of a new temple, a lasting temple, a holy temple called the Church of Jesus Christ. So here he was foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem, and he was doing so in part to prepare his disciples for a new kingdom. Jerusalem and to preach, as we heard John doing in his letter to the church at Philadelphia, to preach this new Jerusalem, to give hope to God's beleaguered children, Christ's persecuted saints. This new Jerusalem, a wonderful and lasting city inhabited by all who endure with genuine faith in Jesus. After telling his disciples that some of them would die for him, he told them in verses 18 and 19, but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance. you will gain your lives. Now, is Jesus contradicting himself right here in the middle of the Olivet discourse? Is he saying, some of you are going to perish for me, but not a hair from your head will perish. And through your endurance, you're going to live forever. Well, no, he's not contradicting himself. He is saying, he was saying that God was going to work out all things for their good and that all who persevere in the faith, including those who die for Jesus, will live forever with him. And he spoke in verse 24 of the times of the Gentiles being fulfilled. It's variously interpreted, but it's most traditionally interpreted to be a reference to the time when all believing Gentiles and Jews are gathered in to the church and Christ comes again in glory. At that time, Christ will make all things new. And all people who believe in Jesus will inhabit a new place, a new city. As new heavens and earth, as Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit what? The earth, the earth. A new city, a new Jerusalem, an indestructible one. As we heard from our epistle lesson in Revelation 3, Jesus promises that those who endure, those who conquer through faith in him will be made a pillar of Christ's new temple, the church, and a citizen of the new Jerusalem. This city will be staggering, it will be overwhelming in its vastness and its beauty, for Jesus himself will be the glory of it. Now, some of you are like me and you grew up not in a big city, but in a rural area. I grew up on a farm, small cattle farm. And I remember the first time though, when I was 12 years old and I saw a really big city. My grandfather had kept this friend through letters, a fellow veteran of his, a World War II veteran of whom he had served in World War II, they had kept corresponding for all those years. And when I was 12 years old, we went on a big family trip up to see this friend of my grandfather and his family in New Jersey. But of course, we had to go see New York City. And we really had to see the Yankees play baseball. You have to understand that my father named me for Mickey Mantle. So there was no doubt that we were going to be going and seeing the Yankees play baseball. And I remember when we were driving into New York City, I was so overwhelmed by the vastness of it that I can still remember to this day, I couldn't catch my breath. It was that overwhelming. I was almost shaking. It was so big compared to the, you know, to Elkin, okay? And the little cattle farm that I grew up on. Friends, in every good way, That's what the new Jerusalem will be like. It will be so overwhelming. We won't even be able to take it in. Now, I hope that there are there's also rural areas in the in the new heavens and new earth. But there is going to be a this wonderful city like place in which all the saints dwell and it will be free from corruption, free from sin, and it will be indestructible. It will be glorious. As we heard from our call to worship from Revelation 21, that lasting city will have no need of sun or moon to shine on it. For the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the lamp. This uncreated glory of God and of his son will provide the light of this eternal city. So let us live faithfully in the temporal, remembering that the temporal matters for eternity. Let us be emboldened to live faithfully in the temporal, knowing that the eternal is certain. Let us shine as lights now for him who will be our light forevermore. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.