We continue in the Olivet Discourse recorded in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke chapter 21. All versions of the same event, the same teaching of Jesus. And we've seen, and I remind us, there are those who read Mark chapter 13, verses 1 through 30, and the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, and read these words as our Lord speaking of some time in the far distant future. immediately before or after the time of Christ's return. There are also those who understand Jesus to have been speaking of events that would occur during that generation. That's what He said. Truly, I say to you, all these things will occur before this generation passes away. And that would be up to and including the destruction of the temple in the city of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. And there are also those who want to split the baby here in half and find a dual fulfillment within these verses here in the Olivet Discourse. And again, we're talking about verses 1 through 30. Once we get to verse 32 in Mark 13, Jesus begins to speak of the time of His return. That's also true of Matthew 24, 36, and all of Matthew 25. But we've shown over the past three Lord's Days that in the first 23 verses of this Discourse, Jesus wasn't speaking of signs of His return on the last day. He was speaking to His disciples specifically of signs and things that would precede His coming in judgment on Jerusalem and on the nation of Israel in 70 A.D. As for the day of His return, we have to remember, Jesus said repeatedly, there won't be any signs of that. I'm going to come like a thief in the night. Luke 12, 40, you too be ready, He said, for the Son of Man's coming at an hour you do not expect. Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 5, 2, you yourselves know full well the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. So Jesus is going to return at a day when no one expects Him to. The Olivet Discourse began, remember, as Jesus and His disciples were leaving the temple. He'd been teaching in the temple this week in the days before He was going to be crucified. It's now less than 72 hours before His crucifixion. And He and His disciples are leaving the temple. While He was in the temple, He taught. He healed. He was challenged by various groups of the Jewish religious leaders trying to expose Him as something of a fraud. Well, of course, they failed. And in chapter 13 of Mark, we see the disciples and Jesus leaving the temple. The disciples are looking back at the magnificence of the temple and the buildings with the temple. And they're extolling the magnificence of the temple. And Jesus says to them, temple's going to be destroyed. Not one of these enormous stones will be left upon another. And they asked Him, when will these things be? What will be the sign of these things are going to be fulfilled? Well, Jesus didn't say when this was going to happen, but He did say it would happen during that generation. And he told them of some events that would happen before the temple fell. There'd be false messiahs, which we've recounted in the recent weeks how many there were. There would be wars. And as we've seen, civil wars both in Rome and in Jerusalem in 66 and 68 A.D. There would be earthquakes. We've recounted the numerous earthquakes that occurred during the 60s. And famines. And we've seen the horror of the famine, especially in Jerusalem. And he told them, you, my disciples, are going to be persecuted. They're going to drag you before the courts and the synagogues. And so, as we trace the history of that generation, we saw that all of those things did indeed come to pass before that generation passed away, just as Jesus said they would. There were terrible and devastating famines, earthquakes, and wars during the four to eight years immediately preceding the fall of Jerusalem. And the four years, 66 A.D. to 70 A.D., that were immediately preceding the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple were particularly horrifying. We've seen cannibalism. The Jewish first century historian Josephus, who was there, tells us 1.1 million Jews were slaughtered. Another 100,000 sold into slavery. The rest scattered throughout the Gentile world. And we've observed as well that because all of these things have always happened, we've had wars and famines and earthquakes and persecution and false messiahs throughout history, that none of these could be rightly understood as signs that Christ was about to come back. If that were the case, everything's been a sign from the time that He departed this earth. In chapter 13, verse 21 of Mark, Jesus said, 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 and will show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." And we went through so many of the false Christs and false messiahs that are recorded in the book of Acts and are recorded in Peter's epistles. And in Josephus, he records several instances of impostors who enticed people with promises of Messiah's appearance. In Wars of the Jews, Book 2, Chapter 2, deceivers and impostors during the 50s AD, under the pretense of divine inspiration, fostering revolutionary changes, they persuaded the multitude to act like madmen. and led them into the desert under the belief that God would there give them tokens of deliverance. False messiahs. So Jesus said in the 23rd verse of Mark 13, take heed. Behold, I've told you everything in advance. Jesus was preparing the apostles for what lay ahead. Not only for the city of Jerusalem, but for them. God's judgment was coming on Israel. Jesus said, these are days of vengeance. Luke 21, 22. This would be the time of God's vengeance. His judgment on the nation that had rejected Him and killed His Son. God had repeatedly declared. And we went through many of these passages in the Old Testament where God warned Israel that if you continue in disobedience to me, my judgment will come on you. And it was about to come. And it did come in 70 A.D. And Jesus here in the Olivet Discourse is telling his disciples that this was going to be a horrifying time of tribulation for the sons of Jacob. He was letting His apostles know what they would face after His departure. And in Luke's account of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus explicitly told them what the tribulation of that time was going to be. Three things, He said, were going to happen. Many of the Jews were going to be killed by the Romans and by one another. Josephus tells us 1.1 million were killed. Second, many of them would be led captive into all the nations. And they were. Josephus records 97,000 led into captivity and slavery. And third, Jerusalem would be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And they're not fulfilled yet. So now we know that before that generation passed away, all of those things came to pass, just as Jesus said they would. Now we come, though, to verses 24 through 27. And we come to two statements of our Lord that present some difficulties for our understanding. And there are many who would agree with everything I've said up to this point, who would now say, wait a minute. At this point, Jesus must be talking about His second coming. About His return on the last day. I don't believe He is. And I'm going to show you why this morning. So verse 24. But in those days, after that tribulation, you notice the time frame reference there. Immediately after that tribulation, Matthew says. In those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from the farthest ends of the earth to the farthest end of heaven. And I'm not going to pretend that especially verse 27 doesn't present some challenges here for us. Because it does. Because Jesus now begins to speak here in verse 24 and continuing through verse 27 in symbolic language. drawn largely from the Old Testament. And a right understanding of the meaning of symbols in Scripture anywhere. And the symbols that Jesus uses here is essential to a right understanding of these verses. And at the end, we're not going to have certainty about especially verses 26 and 27. I'll tell you what I believe Jesus is saying here. And, you know, we're just going to have to wait perhaps until the future to see what God unfolds and reveals to us. So I'm going to leave verses 26 and 27 until next week, because I want to focus today on what Jesus said in verses 24 and 25. And they're going to consume our time this morning. Now I've just mentioned this, but this is extremely important if you really want to get to the truth here. Jesus begins verse 24 with a time reference. In those days after that tribulation. And Matthew, his account is even more specific. He says that Jesus said immediately after the tribulation of those days. So here we have a specific time reference. The events about which Jesus was about to now speak would occur immediately after the tribulation that He had just described. Now, if all that he's described in verses 5 through 23 occurred as of 70 AD, then what he now describes in verses 24 through 27 occurred right after those events. If what he described earlier has not yet occurred and is going to occur in the future, then he's saying that these events are also far in the future. But we have one other very important time reference here from Jesus, don't we? Verse 30, truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Now you see the difficulty we have now. This statement very plainly places all the events described all the way from verse 5 to verse 29 in the same 40 year period in which Jesus was speaking. Now many, perhaps most Christians, read verses 24 through 27, especially verses 26 and 27, and interpret Jesus as describing His second coming at the end of time. And to many, that's a very natural reading of these verses. But then, because Jesus said what He is describing in verse 24 and following as occurring immediately after the tribulation of those days, they then, despite Jesus' words in verse 30 about this generation not passing away, and despite what we know to be the history of Jerusalem and Rome between 62 and 70 A.D., they go back into verses 5 through 23 and move all of those events into the future, near the time of Jesus' return. Now when they do that, they treat Jesus' words in verse 30 as though He never spoke them. Or as though they do not mean what they clearly seem to mean. In effect, they may be saying that Jesus is contradicting Himself here. If everything's going to happen during that generation, but some of those things are happening way in the future, then there's at least an apparent contradiction. Now, we know it's not possible that Jesus would contradict Himself. But that's exactly what people like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell, who deny the truth of Scripture, say. Schweitzer, in his book 1906, The Quest for Historical Jesus, said Jesus was just deluded and wrong, didn't know what He was talking about. Now, we know that's not true. Others make what really is just an obviously wrong claim that here and here alone, this generation does not mean this generation. That it means a race of people. Now the word genea never means race in or outside of Scripture as far as I can find. Certainly not in Scripture. It's never used to describe anything other than a particular 40-year period of people. And we're going to look at that more closely either next week or the following. Then we have Hal Lindsey, one of the many false prophets of our day, who wrongly interpreted the Olivet Discourse as saying Jesus would return in 1988. He told everybody that. He made a movie about it. He wrote a book about it. He was saying that what Jesus was really saying. He saw the United Nations reform the political nation of Israel in 1948 and said, okay, there starts the 40 years. He was wrong. Deuteronomy 18.20, "...the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." Lindsay's a false prophet. Others have sought to untangle what admittedly seems to be a dilemma here by claiming to see a dual fulfillment of Jesus' prophecies here. So these things happened in 70 AD. They're going to happen again. That whole idea would make it impossible to understand any prophecy. It creates more problems than it would solve. And there's no basis on which to do that. And particularly in light of Jesus' words as to when these things would happen. We're left with one other possibility. That all these things actually did occur during that generation. And Jesus was speaking of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. And if that is the case, then we have to ask in verses 26 and 27, was the coming of the Son of Man, was He speaking literally? Or was He speaking there metaphorically and in judgment? Well, we're going to look at that question next week. But I want us to see the weight of the difficulty This is not an easy passage. And this is not a basis for Christians to engage in hostility toward one another. We're just trying to understand what the Bible says. So let's open our Bibles, because it's only there that we're going to find truth. We're not going to find it in these movies, or in these novels, or in the words and the writings of these false prophets. And we have to resist, by the way, the inclination to seek to prove our own presupposition, to prove our own viewpoint that we've come to. Rather, we have to look to Scripture with open hearts and minds and try to find the truth. And in light of Jesus' words in verse 30, which I've said to you, I believe must govern our understanding of this Olivet Discourse. We have to ask ourselves, is there a reasonable way, consistent with the rest of Scripture, to understand the events that Jesus describes in verses 24 through 27 as having occurred in, or before, or during, or immediately after 70 A.D.? And I believe there is. But we'll take our time here and look at it. So verse 24, in those days, After that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. Well, Father, we thank You that You've given us Your Word. Thank You that You've spoken first to the prophets and now have spoken to us in Your Son. Lord, we are fallen people with fallen minds, with limited understanding. And Father, we desire to know the truth. We desire to hear from You. So again, Father, I pray that by Your Spirit, You would give us understanding. Matthew's account is, these two verses, is nearly identical to that of Mark. The only difference being, he says that Jesus said immediately after that tribulation. So we have two choices here, though, with this verse. We can look up to the sky and say, well, wait a minute, the sun's still there. Moon came out last night. Stars were out there. So that hasn't happened yet. Sun hasn't been darkened yet. Moon hasn't ceased giving its light. Or we can open our Bibles and see if there's any meaning to these symbolic words of our Lord. And they are symbolic. Have they been spoken by God before in Scripture? It's critical that we follow sound principles of biblical interpretation. That means we interpret symbolic teaching in light of clear, direct statements in Scripture. It means we must seek to hear Jesus' words as they would have been heard by those first century disciples, Jewish disciples. How would they have heard these words? And how would they have heard these words in light of the questions that they had asked? When will these things happen and what will be the sign when these things are about to occur? And that's how we're going to approach this passage. Again, the question is, is there a biblical warrant for understanding Jesus' words here as occurring immediately after the tribulation of 66 to 70 A.D.? ? And the answer from Scripture, I believe, is that clearly there is. So we don't look to the movies. We don't look to fiction works. We always look to Scripture. And the question is, do we find this phrase sun, moon, and stars elsewhere in Scripture? And if we do, of what does it speak? In Scripture, is this phrase used literally or symbolically as a metaphor for something or both? And if it's the latter, and in those cases when it's used symbolically, is it used as a metaphor for the return of Christ at the end of time or as a metaphor for something else? Or is it used both ways? You may be surprised at what we find when we look to Scripture. Where do we first encounter the sun, the moon, and the stars? Genesis, chapter 1, page 1. God tells us why He placed the sun and moon and stars in the sky. Genesis 114, God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years. And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. That's what they're doing. And then, verse 16, God made two great lights greater light to govern the day, the lesser light to govern the night. He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of heaven to give light on the earth and to govern the day and the night, to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. There was evening and morning, a fourth day. So these were the purposes for which God created the sun, the moon, and the stars. to give light on the earth, to separate day from night, for signs and for seasons. That's how we make a calendar. Men in time would travel by the stars. It could be a ship at sea, and if you knew how to read the stars, you could get from someplace you didn't know where you were to a place you were trying to get by the stars. And in Scripture, the sun, the moon, and the stars, they declare the glory of God. Psalm 19, 1, the heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands. Psalm 8, 1, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who have displayed your splendor above the heavens. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, you have established strength because of your adversaries to make the enemy and the revengeful cease. when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained." In the sun, the moon, and the stars, God reveals himself to man. Perhaps there's nothing else in the creation that reminds us of the Creator more so than the stars at night. Where did they come from? How did they get there? How do they stay there? Can we look at the sun, moon, and stars and not be moved to awe at the power and the glory of God? We read Psalm 148.3, praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all stars of light. So we see the sun, moon, and stars as creations of God. We see them as evidences of His power and glory. And in Scripture, we also see the sun, moon, and stars as symbols related to Israel. Two places, Genesis 37, 9, Joseph had a dream. His brothers were turning against him. In this dream, he told it to his brothers. He said, listen, this time the sun and the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me. They didn't respond well to that, did they? And we see it again as a sign, as a symbol of Israel in Revelation 12.1. A great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars representing the 12 tribes. And she was with child and she cried out being in labor and in pain to give birth to the Son of God. But Because all men come into the world spiritually dead in sin and apart from God. We all come into the world apart from God. Children of wrath, Paul writes. People come into the world and they worship not the Creator, but the creation. Today the world abounds in such people who worship the creation. We have a special day set aside in America from 1970 to worship the creation, the earth. don't have such a day set aside to worship God by all people. In Scripture, the sun, the moon, and the stars are worshiped as pagan gods. God warned, Deuteronomy 4.19, beware, don't lift your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars and all the host of heaven and be drawn away and worship them and serve them. Did that stop the Greeks and the Romans from doing exactly that? It did not. Second Kings 23.5, before King Josiah. We're told there'd never been a king like him before in Israel and wouldn't be another one like him after. Of course, we read the same exact idiom used of Hezekiah, three kings earlier. But in between, Hezekiah and Josiah were two evil kings, and they had sent idolatrous priests to burn incense to the false gods in the high places. And so, King Josiah, 2 Kings 23, 5, did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places, in the cities of Judah and in the surrounding area of Jerusalem. to do away with all of those who burned incense to the imaginary God Baal, to the sun, to the moon, and to the constellations, to all the hosts of heaven. And so, sun, moon, and stars became false gods. And as we've seen many times in Scripture, and more to the point of our passage this morning, The darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, just as we find here in verses 24 and 25, used as symbols, metaphors, to describe and accompany the judgment of God on a nation. We see it as to Babylon, as to Egypt, as to Israel. In Isaiah 13.10, of the prophecy of judgment on Babylon, God said, for the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light. Sun will be dark when it rises. The moon will not shed its light. But Babylon was judged by God and the sun is still shining in the Middle East. Still shining in Iraq, in Jordan. As to judgment on Egypt, when God came in judgment on Egypt, Ezekiel 32, 7. And when I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. I'll cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. Very words that are used here. Egypt was judged by God, and the moon still gives its light. As to judgment on Israel, after explaining at length the reasons why he would have to come and punish Israel. Joel 2.10, before them the earth quakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness. I could go on. Scripture also speaks of the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars in relation to the final judgment of God on the last day. But in every such case, the reference to the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars is a metaphor for the judgment of God. We see it as to the final judgment in the revelation of Jesus to John. The same metaphor used at least twice. In Revelation 6.12, I looked when he broke the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake. Sun became black as sackcloth made of hair. The whole moon became like blood. And the stars of the sky fell to the earth. And that's Revelation 6.12. Somehow though, they're back up in the sky in Revelation 8, 12. This tells us Revelation does not give us a chronological history of the future or any other time. Revelation 8, 12, the fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened, and the day would not shine for a third of it, and a night in the same way. So just a moment. In Revelation 6, 13, the stars all fell to the earth. 8, 12, a third of them can no longer shine. If the stars had already fallen to the earth, how could any of them still shine? Well obviously they couldn't. So what we have in Revelation is not a chronological history. And these references to the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars are always allusions to the judgment of God. They're symbols. The darkening of the sun, moon, and stars is a metaphorical way of saying the judgment of God will come or has come. Revelation 6.12 and 8.12, John was shown visions of the final judgment of God. So he uses the same language for the destruction of Egypt, the same language for judgment coming on Babylon, the same language for the future final judgment of God. And he used that language for the judgment that came on Israel in 70 A.D. And by the way, in the New Jerusalem, will there be any need for sun, moon, and stars? There will not. There will no longer be day and night. There will be no need for illumination by any celestial bodies because the glory of God will illumine the city. Revelation 21.3, the city has no need of the sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 22.5, there will no longer be any night. They will not have any need of the light of the lamp nor of the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them, and they will reign forever and ever. It's undeniable that the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars is used symbolically as a metaphor for God's judgment on a people. It was true in the Old Testament of Israel, Judah, Egypt, Babylon, maybe others. It's spoken of in Isaiah and Revelation as a metaphor for God's final judgment on the world. And here in the Olivet Discourse, for God's judgment on Jerusalem and the nation of Israel before that generation passed away. Just as Jesus had prophesied earlier that same week After he declared the condemnation of the scribes and the Pharisees for their wickedness and hypocrisy, our Lord said to them in Matthew 23, 33, you serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? Therefore, behold, I'm sending you prophets and wise men and scribes Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, Peter, Paul, Stephen, and persecute from city to city. so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah." This punishment, this judgment in 70 A.D. was upon that nation for all of the righteous blood it had shed from the beginning. Truly I say to you, Jesus said to them, all these things will come upon this generation. He was simply repeating in the Olivet Discourse what he had just said in Matthew 23, the seven woes to the scribes and the Pharisees. Well then we have this phrase in verse 25 of Mark 13 and in Matthew 24, 29. And the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Not the heavens, the powers of the heavens. Who are the powers of the heavens? If you were here for our study in Ephesians, you know who they were. For our struggle, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. A demonic being. The powers in the heavenly places will be shaken when they see the awesome power of God when He comes in judgment on Israel, knowing that an even worse judgment will one day come upon them. Now Matthew, Mark, and Luke all recorded accounts of this same discourse. And there are some differences, as we've seen, in language. They're usually pretty minor. But there are also differences between the accounts of Matthew and Mark, on the one hand, and Luke, on the other hand, regarding just these two verses. And so, I don't want to finish without looking at what Luke said here. It's necessary to explain the words of our Lord in all three accounts. You can't just slough things off here. Because all three were recording the words our Lord spoke that day as they left the temple and were standing on Mount Olivet. One thing on which all three evangelists agree is that Jesus did say all these things, including the events of verses 24 and 25, and in Luke 21, 25, and 26, all these things would take place before that generation passed away. They all agree with that. But Luke's account of Jesus' words in regard to what Jesus said regarding the sun and the moon and the stars is more expansive than what we find in Matthew and Mark. And so the question we must answer is, what's the meaning in Luke of these words? Luke 21, 25. There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars. And on earth, he adds, dismay among nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. So Luke writes that as a result of the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, symbols of the judgment of God, there would be dismay among the nations, perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, and men fainting from fear and foreboding at the things that were happening. Now in this particular accounting that Luke gives us, it's not easy to tell what's exactly literal and what's symbolic here. Leon Morris observes, language like this is often used in apocalyptic writings to denote sudden and violent change and the emergence of a new order. And of course, what happened in 70 A.D. was certainly the emergence of a new order. There would no longer be temple worship. And the religion of the Old Covenant, Judaism, in that gave way to Christianity. And certainly, as we look at Luke's words here and think about what happened that day, as the great temple in Jerusalem was falling to the ground amid the slaughter of 1.1 million people, terrifying sounds were heard. People were grieved and frightened. Men were fainting from fear, of course they were. And we see this language of the roaring of the sea and the waves. It's another metaphor for the judgment of God. Isaiah 530 in reference to judgment coming on Judah. And it will roar against it on that day like the roaring of the sea. Isaiah 17, 12, in regard to judgment on Damascus. Oh, the uproar of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas and the rumbling of the nations who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters. Jeremiah 51, 42, how Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations. The sea has come up over Babylon. She has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves. Her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives and to which no son of man passes. Jeremiah 51, 55, for the Lord is going to destroy Babylon, and He will make her loud noise vanish from her, and their waves will roar like many waters. And then, in Psalm 107, verse 25, in reference to a remedial judgment He was going to bring on Israel, for He spoke and raised a stormy wind which lifted the waves of the sea. So, this language too is used throughout the Old Testament to depict or at least in conjunction with the coming judgment of God. This language in Luke is again used by Christ here to depict the horror of the judgment of God on a people. In this case, His coming and judgment on the nation of Israel in 70 AD. And again, remember the context here, folks. Jesus spent much of His time in Jerusalem that week in all of Matthew 23, depicting the end of the rule of the scribes and the Pharisees and the coming demise of the temple and the nation of Israel. Now, I want to say again, when it comes to prophecy, No one has all the answers. I doubt anyone is 100% correct 100% of the time. Ron puts it this way. He says, when it comes to the eschatology, everybody's wrong. Some are just less wrong than others. And that's true. These are difficult subjects. And folks, there are greater errors and difficulties in the church today than what's our understanding of apocalyptic passages and apocalyptic writing. I mean, there are men, many, who deny the grace of God and the salvation of sinners. That's a much bigger problem. There are many who have now caved to this satanic culture that the world has adopted. and are bringing sin into the church approvingly. That's a much bigger problem. There are some who are foolishly being drawn back into Judaism and the practices of Judaism. And I want to remind you, one's salvation does not depend on one's understanding of the Olivet Discourse. person's salvation depends upon is he recognized his sin and is he trusting in Christ as the atonement for his sin on the cross? Does he believe that God raised him bodily from the dead? Has he turned from his sin? Is his life an expression of faith in Christ? At the same time, There's no denying that the passages we've looked at today and over the recent weeks show us there's a sound scriptural basis for the view that Jesus' reference to the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars was spoken as a metaphor for God's coming judgment on Jerusalem and Israel in 70 A.D. And, you know, I want to remind us again, by way of application, as you study the Bible, if we're going to have a right understanding of any passage in Scripture, it's vital that we always read Scripture in light of the rest of Scripture. It's vital that we never lose sight of the historical context and the people to whom the speaker or writer was speaking in a particular passage. It's important and vital that we seek to understand the meaning of the words that are used in Scripture and whether they're used literally or symbolically. And I say to you, we must simply never ignore the words of Jesus or deny their plain meaning in order to fit them into some system that we've been drawn to. I can't let go of Jesus' words. All these things will take place before this generation passes away. Maybe you can come up with a better explanation for all of that. I can't. And so I take Him at His Word. But I also remind us of this, and let us never forget, He is going to return one day in glory, flaming fire with the angels accompanying Him. And John 5.28 says, Then all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and be raised. Those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of eternal life. Those who did the wicked to a resurrection of judgment. God's judgment is real. And it's according to His standard of righteousness, not some standard devised by man. What our Lord says to us about that day is always be prepared. Let us always be on the alert, because we don't know the day or hour of His return. Well, let's take a moment, reflect on the things that Christ has shown us this morning. And then let us examine ourselves, and then we will gather at His table. Heavenly Father, we know that as you've given us your Word, you, who are of infinite knowledge and wisdom, must accommodate yourselves to our limited wisdom and understanding. So, Lord, we must depend on you to open our eyes and help us to understand what you have spoken, that we would, by our now revived spirit, would hear and be taught by your Spirit. Lord, let us never be divided over these things. Let us look forward to that day of His return. Let us be faithful witnesses of Your glory until that time. In Christ's name, amen.