In our scripture reading earlier in the service, we were in Acts chapter 13. So I'll ask you to turn backward in your Bible a few books until you get to Mark chapter 13. And remember that in The sermon of the Apostle Paul during his first missionary journey that we were reading part of this morning, he spoke of what God had written beforehand concerning the coming of the Savior. We'll keep that in mind because there's a lot more to come. There's a time coming to the world that is called the Tribulation or the Great Tribulation, especially the last half of it is called the Great Tribulation. It begins with an event known as the Abomination of Desolation that we studied last week. The focal point of the terrible things that are going to happen in that time in the world is going to be Israel. The judgments of God, to be sure, are going to be worldwide, not just upon Israel. But because of the prophetic significance of Israel, that little Middle East piece of real estate is going to be center stage. for what Jesus describes in our text for this morning. Even now, Israel is the target of much hatred and persecution. But a time is coming when it's going to be far worse, and not only for Israel, but for the whole world and those who follow Christ during that time. Jews or not, will be also suffering intensely. So we're going to look at the next portion in the gospel according to Mark. We actually began with one verse of what is the second paragraph of this great discourse of Jesus. And this one we'll title, I have told you everything in advance. As I was going over this this morning and reviewing and praying about our time together, I realized I could also have titled this, When to Get Out of Town, and you'll understand why as we look at the text. Very simple to outline. Number one, unprecedented tribulation. Number two, God's mercy shortens the time. Let's dive in at Mark chapter 13, and we will be looking in a moment starting at verse 15. This discourse, called the Olivet Discourse, because Jesus sat down on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem, and right after he had told the apostles that the temple and everything around it would be totally destroyed, they asked him a very important question. It's in Mark chapter 13 verse 4. The fullest record of it is in the parallel passage in Matthew chapter 24 verse 3. They said, tell us then, when will these things happen? Meaning the reference to the destruction of the temple. And what will be the sign of your coming? and of the end of the age. Remember, they were expecting the Kingdom of God to come immediately. They believed, rightly, that Jesus is the King. They believed that as they made that trek up from Jericho to Jerusalem, that they were going to an inauguration of the King, of the Kingdom of Heaven. And He was bringing that Kingdom to earth. And they expected it to be coming immediately. They were thrilled when everybody was shouting Hosanna and cutting the palm branches and laying them down. And Jesus came into town riding on the donkey exactly as Zechariah 9.9 says. They thought, this is it! But they went to bed that night without the kingdom. And so they started to realize, we're going to have to wait. Maybe until tomorrow. And it came and went. And the next day it came. They've been waiting three days now. No kingdom just yet. So now he's saying the temple's going to be destroyed. Well, wait a second. Day after tomorrow's the Passover before then. When will these things happen? And what is going to be the sign of your coming? And the end of this age, which brings in the age to come, which is the kingdom. And so, they were thinking, this is going to be right now. And when they said, what will be the sign of your coming? They used a word that is appropriately translated, coming. It's an interesting little Greek word, parousia, from para, which means alongside, and ousia is a participle of the verb to be. It means the being alongside or the being present. So parousia could be used for the arrival of someone coming to you, and it could also be used for the time of their presence with you. So it could be your kids looking out the window on Christmas Eve afternoon, when are Aunt Beth and Uncle Joe going to be here? When are they coming? And then you could look back at it and you could say, we had a great time when Joe and Beth were at their coming for Christmas. And you could be referring to the whole time. They were using the term coming in the sense of a king coming to reign in glory. They genuinely expected it to happen any day. Luke 19, 11, that I've pointed you to almost every visit to Mark for weeks now, they believed or they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. So when they were asking when, they were thinking of the next day or two or three. The answer that Jesus gave them was quite thorough, actually, even if it wasn't completely understood at that time. He began by describing, in general, the times just preceding His second coming. The day before this, he'd given them some parables about a king going away for a time and leaving his people in charge of things. He's been planting this idea in them that there's, yes, I'm here, and yes, I'm the king, but I came to die for your sins. There's going to be a second coming when the kingdom will come. But they were still willing to grant maybe two, three, four days, possibly even a week before that would happen. Why, as a matter of fact, 40 days after Jesus' resurrection, when he ascended to the Father, they were talking to him. Remember what they were saying in Acts chapter 1? Is now the time? Is it now? We've given you over a month. And he said, nope, I'm out of here. That's a loose translation of what he said as he ascended to the Father. And they didn't understand what needed to come. But starting here in Mark chapter 13, which is also recorded in Matthew 24 and 25, we saw in verses 5 through 13, the first paragraph of this long answer describing things that were going to happen just before that Second Coming. He's introduced the idea of there being an interim. Now he's saying, you're going to know. You're going to know without a doubt that I'm coming again when you see certain things happen. And so, in verses 5 through 13, he described what he called the beginning of birth pangs. Well, in that analogy, the baby would be the arrival of the kingdom. The birth pangs, the contractions that come before, they build in intensity. He's talking about a seven-year period leading up to His second coming. which predicted in the Old Testament, Daniel chapter nine, it's called the 70th week of Daniel or the 70th seven. From the time Daniel received that, 69 sevens or 483 years of prophetic significance happened in Israel. Now there's the gap between week 69 and week 70. That's where we live. And Jesus has said, just before I come, you're gonna see some things really begin to ramp up. Things you've been seeing now, like wars and rumors of wars and false Christs and that, but it's going to get a lot more intense. And then we began the second paragraph of his answer to that question. The first paragraph is the beginning of the birth pangs. Now he began the second paragraph, and this is where we were last Sunday. We have to connect to it. Mark 13, 14, he said, I mean, for all of those birth pangs. But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be, let the reader understand. than those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains." We studied last time this event called the Abomination of Desolation. That's when this political leader of the One World End Times government is going to set himself up as God right in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and demand that he be worshipped as God. Big deal about that in Daniel chapter 9. There's a similar event that took place in the 2nd century BC, also predicted by Daniel. That was a precursor to the ultimate abomination of desolation. That's when a man named Antiochus Epiphanes disrupted the worship in the temple. He set up an idol to Zeus and he sacrificed a pig there and the temple was spiritually out of commission for some time. It was eventually restored under the leadership of a priest named Judas Maccabeus. Hence, those books, those apocryphal books that are included in some versions of the Bible. The Maccabees, some accurate history in there, though they're not inspired. When the temple was restored, they had a big celebration. They called it the Feast of Lights. You know it as Hanukkah. Jesus said at a Feast of Lights, John chapter 8, I am the light of the world. So there was that precursor and Jesus says, we know that's happened, but when you see the one, the one, and he says, let the reader understand. Now as I said last week, I could just see Peter looking around at the rest of the guy and saying, who's reading while Jesus is talking? He knew this was to be written down. He knew this was to be included in the Scriptures, and he commands us, we the readers, you need to understand this. You need to be able to put this together because you need to know what's going to happen, and you need to know that I am in control of what's going to happen so that you know you need not fear. Now, that verse begins the second great paragraph of this discourse, and today we're going to finish that paragraph. When that 70th week of Daniel begins, things will change rapidly in the world. Why? It will be as if you are 39 plus weeks pregnant and you start to feel these pains. Things are going to get really intense and you can't stop it. There's going to be unprecedented worldwide turmoil. Now we believe and understand from the Scriptures that what will precipitate all these things is the event called the rapture of the church. That's predicted in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 13 through 18, 1 Corinthians 15, 51 and 52. Jesus alluded to it without using such terms in John chapter 14 and verse 3 when he said, I will come and receive you to myself. That's the moment when all living believers in Jesus Christ will be snatched away from the earth And all who have died as believers in Christ will be resurrected. Now, in the turmoil that's caused by the rapture, I mean, just imagine the instantaneous, simultaneous disappearance of everybody on the planet who believes in Christ. That's going to disrupt some things. In the turmoil caused by that, the most deceptive, clever, smooth, and powerful deceiver of all times is going to swoop in and rise to power, worldwide power. He's the one we usually refer to by the title, the Antichrist. He has many other titles in the Bible, but we'll stick with Antichrist for today. His rise to power is going to be unprecedented and ingenious. And one of the things that he's going to do to seize power is peace in the Middle East. Boy, if somebody could pull that off today, there'd be a lot of credibility, right? I mean, how have we done on that? There's been no president in my life that hasn't promised efforts toward peace in the Middle East, and God bless him for trying. It's not going to work unless they're the Antichrist. And it's not time for him just yet. That's what he's going to do is bring peace there in the form of, from the Israeli perspective, it'll be a treaty providing protection to Israel, a covenant that he will make with Israel in which he will promise Israel his protection for seven years. Now, you can speculate about why he would promise them seven years. The Bible doesn't answer that question, but he does. The temple is going to be very quickly rebuilt in Jerusalem. We know that because a whole lot of those 70th week events happen in and around the temple, including the abomination of desolation. We know that people around the world now are poised with everything they need to rebuild that temple. When the day comes, it's going to happen really fast. And Israel will, for the first time since her modern existence began in 1948, Israel will have peace with her neighbors. But it's not going to last seven years. Halfway through that term of the seven years of promised peace, this wicked world ruler, the Antichrist, will commit that act described as the abomination of desolation. He'll break his treaty with Israel. And that event will literally be the beginning of the end. Leading up to it is the beginning of birth pangs. Boy, when the abomination of desolation comes, let the reader understand things are going to get crazy. These are important words of Jesus and they are preserved in the Bible for several reasons. If you can read and you have a Bible, you have orders from God, you need to understand this. Hence, we got to put the pieces together. It takes a little bit of thinking and study to come up with all this. But I see at least three levels of significance for this. For one thing, at the time that Jesus said this, it was very significant for those men who were with Him on the Mount of Olives that night. They needed to understand that the Kingdom of God that they supposed was going to happen any day was yet future. They did not yet grasp, and we can't fault them for this, they did not yet grasp that not only was the King coming, He's coming twice. He's going to come once to suffer and die for sins. He's going to come again to reign in glory. And there's going to be an interval between them. And lo and behold, it's going to be more than 40 days. It's going to be, well, we know of about 2,000 years. But Jesus wanted them to know that certain things needed to happen before He would set up His kingdom. Now, it isn't like they caught on that very day, but the message is clear that the end times events which would bring in the kingdom are yet to come. Now, I'm thinking about Matthew. He was there that night. Mark wasn't there that night, but he got his information from Peter. These guys wrote decades later, putting all this together, and we don't know for sure if Jesus said, let the reader understand, or if the Holy Spirit just inspired Matthew and Mark to say, let the reader understand. But can you imagine at least Matthew and Mark writing that down and saying, wow, we didn't get it back then. Let the reader understand. second level of significance. These words are here for us. We're living in that significant era between the first and second comings of Christ. As I've described it earlier in this series on the Olivet Discourse, this portion, the Olivet Discourse, is the grand central station of Bible prophecy. It's the nexus through which connect all of the threads of prophecy that flow from the Old Testament all the way through the New Testament and into the book of Revelation. And this provides us with details and a certain sense of completeness of our understanding of biblical prophecy. Why? Let the reader understand. That's why it's here. We have the luxury to compare the full complement of what the Bible teaches about end times. As I've said, it's not here so that you can draw charts and graphs of the end times events, but drawing charts and graphs of the end times events is a really interesting and edifying thing. And, you know, two people's charts might disagree on a detail here and there. That's not the problem. The point is God has given us what we need to know, and He says, I want you to understand this. The third level of significance of this is that these words are preserved in God's Word for the edification and the instruction of those who will come to believe in Jesus Christ during the time of the fulfillment of these prophecies. Imagine if you have heard the gospel, withheld faith in Christ, and the rapture happens. You think there's going to be some people who'll be pretty interested in dusting off grandma and grandpa's Bible and going back to what they kept talking about? Imagine the fervor of the Bible study of those who will be believing in Christ at the 11th hour of human history. So I want us to look at this warning from Jesus concerning the things that will be set in motion immediately by the abomination of desolation. So we already read verse 14, we already studied, but I want to back up to that and read from verse 14 through verse 17. Now you've heard about the birth pangs, the beginning of birth pangs, but Here's where it gets serious. Here's where you check your go-bag. Here's where you make sure you have a plan to get to the hospital, to use the analogy. But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be, let the reader understand. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. The one who is on the housetop must not go down or go in to get anything out of his house. And the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days. Those earlier difficulties, they're really significant. Read about them in Revelation, especially chapters 5 and 6. That covers the first half of the 70th week of Daniel up until the time of the abomination of desolation. Those are the beginnings of birth pangs. Very significant things, but what comes after the abomination of desolation is the most severe of all things that will ever happen on this planet. Now, because of their proximity to the temple headquarters of Antichrist, that will be his headquarters when he commits the abomination of desolation. And for the last half of the tribulation, he'll be operating out of Jerusalem. So those who are in Judea, the area around Jerusalem, they're going to be in the most immediate danger. So the warning is especially to them, flee to the mountains. Now we know that among the Jews who are alive during that time, at least 144,002, if we count the 144,000 of Revelation and the two witnesses, but I think there's going to be many more than that, but those are the special servants of His. Many will believe in Christ during those early months and first three and a half years of the Tribulation. So the warning is especially to them, but not just to Jews. There will also be, according to Revelation 7, an innumerable multitude. How many is that? More than you can count, okay, of people who are saved from all the peoples and tongues and tribes and nations of the world. He's going to say, fleet of the mountains. Now the mountains that he refers to likely refer to the area to the south and the east of Jerusalem near the Dead Sea. It might also include some of the area east of the Jordan River in the hills and the regions known in the Bible as Moab and Edom. You can take trips today and tour guides love to take people to the ancient city of Petra. You ever seen the pictures of that? Spectacular. And I've heard sermons about how that's the place that God's going to take his people. Well, you know, we don't know what that place exactly is because God's going to have to prepare it. You can go to Petra right now and I just dare you to take an extra, I don't know, two or three million people there. There's not one single Home Depot or McDonald's anywhere to be found around there. What are they going to do for the necessities of life? what God's going to provide for them and it will be a miraculous provision and we don't know exactly what that will be yet but we do know it'll be a desperate time. Flee to the mountains. The Greek word translated flee is the word fugo. Can you guess what English words come from that? Fugitive. running away, run for your life, just flee. And he uses word pictures from their culture. First century houses of those days had what you would call the patio or even the sleeping porch up on the roof of the house for the hot weather days. And Jesus says, if you're there, when you hear of the abomination of desolation, let the reader understand. Don't even stop in the house on your way down from the roof to take anything. Just run. That's when to leave town. If you're working in the field and your cloak isn't immediately nearby, don't even take time to get it. Just run. A holocaust of human slaughter, unprecedented, is about to begin. Now, a couple of things are happening at once. This is talking about the ramifications of the abomination of desolation, what the Antichrist is going to do. And he's going to do horrible things. And he's going to especially be going after Israel and Christians, both Jew and Gentile. But on the other hand, there's also the judgment of God going on. Now, 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 10 says, when you come and put your faith in Christ, you will be spared the wrath of God. And trust me, that's where you want to be. You want to be spared from the wrath of God. There's great detail of the wrath of God. It's going to be poured out in a specific sequence of events that's described in quite a bit of detail in the book of Revelation. First, it's the Lamb, the one that was slain and now is alive. He takes the scroll from the hand of God the Father, and He begins to break open the seals on the scroll, which is like the title deed to the earth. And with breaking each seal, a judgment occurs on earth. Breaking the first six of them takes you through the first three and a half years. And then when He breaks the seventh seal, it reveals seven angels, each one with a trumpet, And when the angel blows his trumpet, another judgment takes place. And when you get to the seventh angel, the seventh angel blows his trumpet and seven more angels appear, each with a bowl of wrath that they pour out. So the picture is that the judgments start with the beginning of birth pangs. And there's more birth pangs and more birth pangs. And then after the abomination of desolation, they get even more intense and they come even closer together. Believers will be spared from that, but They will not be spared from what the Antichrist will do to them. Now, several places in our text, it describes unprecedented suffering, unprecedented persecution. Think about it this way. Whatever the world's population is now, remove all the Christians. That's going to be a very significant number of people taken out of the world. That's going to pave the way, I think, for the Antichrist to come to power. Then, as you read through the sequence of the judgments from God, from the judgments of God, never mind what the Antichrist does, from the judgments of God, a fourth of the remaining population is going to die. in a very short period of time at one of those judgments. So a fourth of the world's population, that drops it to 75 percent, three-fourths of what it was. A later judgment in that sequence says a third will die. Well, if you're down to 75 percent of what you started with and a third of those die, that takes out another 25 percent, half of the people who survive or who are here after the rapture will be killed during the tribulation in the outpouring of God's wrath. Just imagine if we had to schedule in the next seven years funerals for half the people on the planet. This is awful. Well, alongside that is the persecution of this tremendously powerful And he has a religious sidekick called the false prophet. His targets will be everyone who refuses to worship him. Hence, Jews and believers in Christ. He's going to unleash furious persecution against those who belong to God. So it only makes sense, those nearest Jerusalem, where this guy's going to set up his own image to be worshipped, they're going to be in the most immediate danger, the most severe danger. So the warning is flee and go hide. Now I want to show you two scriptures that relate to this. It's hard to know what to include and what not to include when you're putting together the whole story of everything that God plans to do in the Bible. Two key passages will let us know that not every believer, whether Jew or Gentile, is going to be successful in escaping. The Antichrist is going to take out a whole bunch of them. The Old Testament reference I want to point you to is in Zechariah 13. Verse 8 at the beginning of verse 9 says this, And trust me, it's talking about this time. If you don't trust me, okay, go study Zechariah. And while you're at it, toss in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, the Olivet Discourse, everything Jesus said about prophecy, everything that David said about the covenant that God made with him, everything that God told Moses about the prophet who was... This fits, okay? Trust me. And go verify it. I would be glad to have you do that. It says this, "...and it will come about in all the land," declares the Lord. Now, this is through Zechariah, so all the land would refer to Israel. It'll come about in all the land, declares the Lord, that two parts in it will be cut off and perish, but the third will be left in it, and I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested." What that saying is, two-thirds of those who are alive in Israel will die in that time. The rest will be refined. This is going to be the work of the Antichrist, slaughtering two-thirds of Jews, both believers and unbelievers alike. His motives are as wicked as can be. He is pure evil. He is actually, as you read through Revelation, he is possessed by Satan when he gets to that point of the abomination of desecration. But understand, in the sovereignty of God, his evil fury is going to accomplish God's purpose of purging the rebel Jews, leaving only those who turn to the Lord. The rest of verse 9 in Zechariah 13 says, "...they," the ones who are refined, "...they will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, They are My people, and they will say, The Lord is My God." That's where Romans chapter 11 verse 27 is fulfilled. All Israel will be saved. All Israel alive now? No, but there will be a time when all in Israel who are alive will turn to the Lord. The Antichrist is going to help accomplish that by killing off the rest. Now the Jews will not be the only targets of the hateful, murderous persecution of the Antichrist. The New Testament passage is this one, Revelation chapter 6, verses 9 through 11. Remember, this is the breaking of the seals. This is that context. When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar." Now, John is having a vision of what is in heaven, so this is a heavenly altar. "...I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God." What does a soul look like under the altar? Well, nobody's ever seen the altar except John, and he didn't describe it. And I don't know what a soul looks like without a body. But you can see it when God wants you to. Souls will be there. They're disembodied. They're dead physically, but they're very much alive spiritually. "...I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained. And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" And there was given to each of them a white robe, and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed, even as they had been, would be completed also." Now, we know that those have to be people who are killed during the first half of the Tribulation. How do we know that? All who are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord, when He takes the church out, will be caught up together with Him. But before that, all the dead in Christ will rise. They will already be resurrected. So these are a massive group of Tribulation Era martyrs. And that's only a third of the way through the sequence of judgments in Revelation. The number of martyrs is going to be staggering. And God does avenge their blood in His time. Read through the book of Revelation this afternoon if you want to and figure out where that happens. So when the abomination of desolation takes place, the Jews in Judea better leave town, flee to the mountains. There's going to be a place of refuge provided by God for them to go. The fleeing is described in a cryptic passage in Revelation chapter 12 verses 14 through 17, but God will provide something for them. It's not clear how it's going to be accomplished, but it will be a terrible time on earth. Read on with me in Mark verses 17 through 19. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days, but pray that it may not happen in the winter, for those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now and never will." Worse than the Holocaust? Worse than anything going on in North Korea. Worse than anything the Soviet Union has ever done. Worse than any ethnic purging that has ever. The worst ever. And by the way, there's sort of a little backdoor insight here for you. He says, pray that it will not happen in the winter. Well, who said that? Jesus did. Are you telling me that Jesus doesn't know what time of year this is going to happen? Yeah. Because He said so. Pray that it won't be in winter. No man knows the day or the hour, says He, even the Son of Man. Now it's interesting, when you get to Revelation, it doesn't say even the Son of Man. He does know now. but he veiled his omniscience during his first coming. So if somebody comes along and tells you they know when it's going to take place, they don't. A lot of people love to say, well, it's all connected to the cycle of the feasts of Israel, and it's going to happen during the feast of fill in the blank. Most go for Pentecost or tabernacles. Well, you know what? We don't know. So if anybody thinks they know, they're woofing. They just don't know. Women expecting children and those with infants are going to be especially vulnerable. Anybody not able to move fast is going to be at greater risk of being captured and killed. And that's not a surprise. We know that Satan's emissaries didn't mind killing Hebrew children in the time of Moses. His dupe named Herod didn't mind ordering the slaughter of all the infants in and around Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus. No surprise that the most wicked man who will ever live won't flinch at killing women and children. Well, Jesus goes on to warn, it's even going to be tough in the winter. Even the mild winters in Israel can make travel more difficult. It's literally going to be the worst time ever on earth. It is unprecedented tribulation. But there's always good news. God never judges without extending mercy and grace. Look at verses 19 and 20. unless the Lord had shortened those days." Now, don't misunderstand that. That's just a figure of speech. It doesn't mean God says, well, I planned for this to be 17 years, but I'm going to cut it down to seven just because I'm backing off a little bit. No, it means it's going to be shortened to exactly the time that He ordained. If you extrapolate it from how things are going, you say there's going to be nobody left on this planet because that's the way things will be headed. Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect whom He chose, He shortened the days." As I mentioned, this is one of the reasons we know for sure that this is yet future because the final three and a half years of the Tribulation are going to be worse than any time in history. So while we're still going through history, if it could get any worse, we're not to that time just yet. Shortened is a word that is used only here in the Bible, here in Mark's version and in Matthew's version, in Matthew 24, 22. Literally, the word means cut off or amputate, so when you put it in a sense of time, it means to cut short the time. God is going to stop this carnage. He's going to stop the Antichrist. He's going to stop his wrath because he will have poured it all out. And it's going to be exactly the time allotted by God. And notice it is for the sake of the elect. Every time you read that word, some people start curdling on the inside. The elect whom God has chosen. What? Are you trying to tell me that God chooses who's going to be saved? Well, I'm not telling you that. God said that. He chose that. He said, well, that's not fair. Are you telling me I can't be saved? And I'm not saying that. No, because I'm saying Jesus said, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. Anybody can come to Christ. And anybody who comes, He will never cast out. He chose who will come, because left to themselves, no one would. And for the sake of the elect, He shortened those days. He's going to allow the nation of Israel to be purged. He's going to be using the Antichrist to accomplish His purpose within Israel. Only God can use sin sinlessly, and He does. He's going to get to exactly the point of the number of people in Israel who are going to turn to the Lord and welcome Him at His second coming. Similarly, the persecution of the saints around the world is going to be just right for there to be exactly the right number of a living remnant left on earth at the second coming to enter the kingdom and populate the earth during the thousand years of the kingdom. It seems that from what Jesus said that even among those who heed His advice and flee to safety, there's still going to be people who are going to infiltrate that group and deceive. How do we know that? Well, the last three verses of our section, Mark 13, 21 to 23. And then, then, then when you're fleeing, And then, if anyone says to you, behold, here is the Christ, or behold, He is there, do not believe him, for false Christs and false prophets will arise. We've already had false Christs and false prophets, but in that day, they're going to arise. And we'll show signs and wonders, even miraculous tricks, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But take heed, behold, I have told you everything in advance." Right until the very end, there will be deception going on. The two little words, if possible, is very important. The elect will not ultimately be deceived. They might be temporarily confused. They might be the targets of powerful persuasion, but true believers will always remain faithful to the end. Remember during the beginning of birth pangs, we saw that Jesus said, he who endures to the end, he will be saved. Well, what he's saying is, understand this. Let the reader understand and notice his closing words here. I have told you everything in advance. That is meant to cross many centuries and to serve those who will be alive in those days. And it's also meant to teach us we don't need to fear. We don't need to doubt. We don't need to waver in our faith. He told us all this so that we can know that He's trustworthy, just like He told us everything that was going to happen to Jesus in His first coming, which the Apostle Paul preached about in Acts chapter 13. He's told us everything leading up to the second coming. There are going to be false Christs and false prophets saying, here He is. No, there He is. He's over there. How will the believers in that time distinguish the real coming of the true Messiah, Jesus Christ? Well, you ought to read about it. We're going to next time. The coming of Jesus Christ to judge and to reign on earth will be unmistakable. Come next week, if he hasn't taken us before then, and Lord willing, we will come together and we will see what I think of as the biblical trailer that describes the coming events. It's going to be the most spectacular event this planet will ever see. But did you catch the command there at the end? But take heed. That's an idiomatic translation of a command. form of the Greek word for seeing. It's the present imperative form, so it means never take your eyes off of this. Don't let anybody shake you from your understanding of this. Jesus says, I have told you everything in advance. How much more do you need to know about what's going to happen in the end times than what's in the Bible? Nothing. Everything you need is here. Does it answer your every question? No. But it's everything you need to know. I've told you everything in advance. He put that in the perfect tense, meaning it's all there is ever to know. I've given it all to you. I've not held back anything. So the command to us here, it's really two things. Let the reader understand and take heed. Put your faith in God. The only way you can be spared from that outpouring of the wrath of God is to be in Christ, who died that He could take on all the penalty for our sins. Trust in the veracity of His Word. Trust His promises. He will do exactly what He says He will do, just as He has done exactly what He said He would do in the first coming of Christ. And between now and the moment that you see the Lord in person, how do you go about taking heed? Well, how about some famous words from Proverbs chapter 3? Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." That's an idiom for, He will guide you. Doesn't mean it'll be easy. Oh yeah, there's persecution even now. But you will know that you are safe in His care, in His arms. I told you everything in advance," he said. Let's pray. Father, how we thank You for sending Your Son in every sense of that, but especially today as we focus on His words that He's told us everything we need to know in advance about Your plan for us. As we live in between those comings, help us take heed. Help us read carefully that we might understand. Put the message of Your gospel of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and His death and burial and resurrection and coming again. Help us spread that good news wherever You give us breath and opportunity. For we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.