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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.
#12 The Darkening of the Sun, Moon and Stars
Series The Bible and the Future
| Sermon ID | 76172349125 |
| Duration | 44:28 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Matthew 24:29 |
| Language | English |
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