your Bible, turn with me to Mark chapter 13. But just before I turn there, there was a song written in 1959 by probably one of the singular most remembered folk writers of the 20th century, a guy by the name of Pete Seeger. The song didn't become popular for seven more years. And when I was about seven years old, it became very, very popular. And it was sung by a group called the Birds. And it was taken, other than the words, turn, turn, turn, the lyrics of the song were Ecclesiastes chapter 3, 1 to 8. For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. In quite a few years now, people have asked me, so how long do you think you'll keep going in this whole pastor thing? And I've said, well, I think around 70. And recently, I told the elders, 70. I'm gonna go till I'm 70. Which right now, I'm 67 and a quarter. 67 and a quarter. John Piper retired when he was exactly my age. That's 12 years ago, he was 67. He gave a great illustration of how to think about retirement when he did. He said, I see myself like it's graduating from high school. And when you graduate from high school, then you get to decide to do what you're going to do with the rest of your life. Retirement's a little like that. You graduate from work, from whatever you did, and then you decide you're going to do what you're going to do for the rest of your life. And it occurred to me in that analogy of what I just told you is that I'm three months into my sophomore year of high school. And so I've got the rest of my sophomore year and my junior year and then my senior year and then I have to figure out exactly what I'm going to do in December of 2027. You say, well, but why then make this announcement so early? Well, it's because It's generally thought wise. In fact, the person in our congregation hasn't been here that long, but she's the one that's actually known me the longest. I met some visitors this morning who mentioned her to me, Mary Clath. Mary Klatt. I met Mary when I first became a pastor 40 years ago right now. In fact, I would have met Mary 40 years ago this month. I know that because she and her husband didn't come to our church. They went to a different church, but they visited our church on a Thursday night once a month because they had good friends and they came to something that we call down there family fellowship. And so I would have met Mary 40 years ago right now, but I only stayed there four and a half years, which means if you do the math, that I've been here for 35 and a half years. That's considered a long time in the pastoral game. If you stay in one place 35 and a half years, they call that, that's a long time. In fact, a lot of people call it, that's too long. That's way too long for putting up with some one person that long. But usually then, a couple of ways you go about it, if you've done that, and one of them, the one that we're going to try to follow, is that you start a process for your replacement while you're still there, and then you bring the next guy on while you're still there, and then you overlap a little while, and then you fade out, and that person stays. So that's what we hope to do, and that's what we're asking you to pray for our elders, and they'll eventually appoint a search committee to that end and so forth and discuss all of these things, and it falls on them. So if you will pray about that, and we'll see how it goes. Well alright, enough of all of that and so now let's go back to the business at hand which is Mark 13. Mark 13, let's stand together. Mark chapter 13 beginning in verse 28. From the fig tree learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that He is near at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words, my words will not pass away. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father in heaven, we I'm reminded even this morning as we gather together as a congregation of disciples and sing praises to you, sing songs that honor you, reminding ourselves of what you've done for us. The psalmist says, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, my soul faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Oh Lord, we find ourselves, if we are born again people, as your dwelling place. Our bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit and here we are gathered Singing, praising, learning, fellowshipping in your name. And Lord, we are blessed to be among such people. Blessed to be among those who find their strength in you. Who find in their hearts the pathway to life eternal that is in Jesus Christ. who passed through together many difficulties and trials, the valley of the shadow of death. A flower this morning before the pulpit in memory of Tom Miller, just recently passed away. His family had been passing through the valley of the shadow of death. But you also make a place of springs of water in the midst of such valleys and nourish us and revitalize us and keep us going forward even after we pass through such days, experience such disappointments, know such losses. Lord, we are mindful of living in a world that is relatively hostile toward you. Quite hostile, in fact, from many, many angles in many, many ways. But you, in the midst of that kind of world, are, as the psalmist says, a sun and shield to us. You bestow your favor and honor on your people. And you don't withhold your good things from us, even in a place filled with trials, adversities, and disappointments. Lord, may you hold us fast and enable us to continue to be, O Lord of hosts, those who trust in you. For as the psalmist says, blessed is the one who trusts in you. May we know and own and walk in that blessing, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Mark chapter 13. You're listening to Jesus, it sometimes sounds And you would say, especially if you weren't wild about him, that he has the bad habit of talking as if he is overly confident about certain things. In fact, you would accuse him regularly of overstating his case. He overstates the case. He is, especially in the scholarly community, regularly, regularly accused and really just dismissed for how overly confident Jesus is in something like the authority of the Hebrew Bible. Pastor Don mentioned this in the evening service last Sunday night, just as an allusion off of the text in Deuteronomy. We went back over to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 17 to 19. Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I do not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass away from the law— the law there standing for the entire written instruction of God in the Old Testament, the law and the prophets and the writings— not a single thing will pass away, not an iota, not a dot, from the law until all is accomplished. And therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same is least in the kingdom of heaven. That's why most of the scholars don't like it. That's what they're doing. And he calls them on it. But whoever does them and teaches them He will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Now, the overstatement, of course, is found in that simple little phrase, truly, truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away. Because heaven and earth are as stable as anything other than God or his word that human beings know. Broadly speaking, heaven and earth are incredibly, incredibly stable. When I was looking at this particular piece of the text last Thursday, I looked on my app, my weather app, to see, so what time will sunrise be tonight? And it said, 731. 731. Eh, around 731. Nope. It's too false. 731. Well, how can they be so sure? How can it be that they don't know that the rotation of the Earth might slow a little in the afternoon? Wind might come up. Slow it down a bit. Never happens. has never happened, won't happen throughout the entire present age. The season moves forward. This morning it was 736. Sunrise here in Sioux Falls, 736. Now in the Badlands, in the Badlands this morning it was 659, 659. In other words, they know that the earth is going to rotate such that the sun will begin to appear in the Badlands exactly 23 minutes after it begins to appear here. That's what he means, it's precise. You can absolutely count on. Things like the Earth's rotation. Things like the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Things like the Moon's orbit around the Earth. They are almost unbelievably reliable. And Jesus says, yes, they surely are. They are unbelievably reliable. In fact, about the only thing that's more reliable than them is the text of the Hebrew Bible. Or as we're about to see, the only thing more reliable them would be my words. and the text of the Hebrew Bible. Those are not only more reliable than them, but they'll be more long-lasting than them as well. I'd state our thesis for this morning this way. We are to rest in the hope, in the complete reliability of Jesus. We are to rest our hope in the complete reliability of Jesus. Or maybe more precisely, if you would weight our present context, you would say we are to rest our eschatological and eternal hope in the complete reliability of Jesus. That's eschatological, study of the end, where things are headed. The eternal state, that's eschatology, the study of the end. We are to rest our eschatological and eternal hope in the complete reliability of Jesus. We'll look at this from three angles. Number one, Jesus finds a parable in the seasonal cycle of a fig tree. Jesus finds and notes a parable in the seasonable cycle, the seasonal cycle of a fig tree. Verse 28, from the fig tree learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. Now I say it's seasonal cycle because the context doesn't mention the word seasonal, but the context makes it clear. He doesn't want to talk to us about the entire life of the fig tree, which would cycle through this process again and again. No, that's not the analogy that works with what he's talking about. The only analogy that works is the seasonal cycle of the fig tree, which is purely linear and not at all cyclical. So in the seasonal cycle of the fig tree, he finds a comparison between that, as we'll see in their second point, and the next stage, but just to jump ahead for a moment, The present age is the age between, especially the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, resurrection of Jesus being underlined, that begins the new age, the beginning of the new age with Christ, and the end of the present age at his second coming. And Jesus says, learn about that By learning the fig tree. It's a command. It's an imperative. Learn the parable of the fig tree. Learn the fig tree. A command. Learn the fig tree. Now I'll have to be honest with you, I have never, to my knowledge, seen a fig tree in my life. I've certainly never had a fig tree in the yard of any property that I've ever lived on. Lots of other kinds, but never a fig tree. But I'm pretty sure the idea works equally well. When I was a kid in Rockford, we had a pear tree in our yard, but behind our yard, much more notably, was an empty lot that we were allowed to cut across as sort of a shortcut on the way to school. And in that empty lot, the people that lived directly behind us, they owned the lot next to them. as well, and we were allowed to cut across that lot, and that lot simply had, all it had was four apple trees in it. And so, you would notice on your way to school that in the wintertime, the apple trees would be completely bare, and then at some point in the spring, there would be buds on them, and then there would be leaves on them. And then there would be blossoms on them. And you couldn't help but notice that, even if you were four, five, six, seven years old. And I walked by that fig tree on my way to kindergarten and back. Every spring I walked by those trees on my way to first grade and back. Every spring I walked by those trees on my way to second grade and back. Every spring I actually did that one twice, repeating the second grade as I did, loving it so much. And then after that, by the next spring, We lived a little closer to Chicago, but on an acreage where we had probably five or six apple trees and a cherry tree that worked exactly the same way on that acreage. And Jesus says, I want you to simply answer this question, and I could have answered it when I was five years old with ease. So when you see, when you see the buds appear and the leaves appear and the blossoms appear, can you tell me what season of the year comes next? And I would have been able to tell you at five years old. That would be summer. That would be summer. And as a 5, 6, 7, 8-year-old boy, I loved summer. No school, no responsibilities to speak of, a few, but not very many. Lots of playing, lots of wiffle ball, all kinds of stuff like that would have told you with significant summer, glorious summer. That's all Jesus wants you to learn from the fig tree. Learn the fig tree. And here's what you learn about it. When you see the limbs soften and then sprout, you know, you ought to absolutely know that what's about to come, what inevitably comes next is summer. That's the lesson. That's the lesson. Secondly, Jesus compares the seasonal cycle of the fig tree to the cycle of the present age. Verse 29, but I'll read back up to it from verse 28. From the fig tree, here's the command, learn its lesson. So there's the imperative. As soon as the branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know, there's the indicative, you know this. What is it that you know? Summer's coming. Learn so that you know, you know, summer's coming. Next. Inevitably. Certainly. And then he says this in verse 29, so also when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near at the gates. So what's the these things taking place? Well, we already argued that a few weeks ago, but I'll remind you, because we're in the same context. Context is king, as we often remind ourselves. And so he's talking about the signs that he mentioned. The signs that he mentioned back in verses 3 to 8. That's the these things. So here it was. Here's the these things. And if you are trying to figure out the end times, as we noted a few weeks ago when we touched on these, these are incredibly disappointing signs, because they're so general. They're so general. So here they were. As he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, tell us, when will these things be? Namely, the destruction of the temple and all of that, the end of the age by implication. And what will be the sign when these things are about to be accomplished? And Jesus began to say to them, see to it that no one leads you astray. See to it that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name saying I am he and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be earthquakes in various places and there will be famines and there and those will be the beginning of The birth pains. So the world will be a deceptive place, and it'll be a violent place. There'll be wars. You say, but those things are always there. Yes, they are. That's the point. That's the point. The fig tree always buds. The leaves always come out. Yes, they do. That's the point. That's the point. Last Monday, just how contemporary this is, last Monday, front page, Wall Street Journal, as Al Mohler likes to say in the briefing, top of the fold, Right column. Here's the headline. Russia presses forward in battle for Kursk. Wars and rumors of wars. Wars. Russia presses forward in battle for Kursk. And that's one of the signs of the times. You say, well, that's not in the least bit helpful. That's always going on. Yes, it is. But you see, next week we'll start out with verse 32, where Jesus says this. Jesus says this. We're not going to spend any time on it right now, but it's a great thing to keep in mind. Jesus says this, verse 32, "...but concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father." So if he doesn't know, When that is going to happen, how could he possibly give signs as to when particularly that is going to happen? I'll help you with that. He could not. And he does not. And that's not what he's doing here. He's not trying to help you figure out when exactly that is going to happen. Not at all. What Jesus wants to help you and I with is to have us clearly keep in mind all the days of our life that it is going to happen with the same utter and complete certainty that summer follows upon the leafing of the fig tree. with the absolute same utter certainty. That. You say, well, but what? That is not, that information is not, oh, that information is a big deal. That is a really, really big deal. One of the worst things that's happened in the past hundred years in America is, in American academic circles, the weight, the mighty weight given to the thinking. Whether you ever took a class in him or not, the mighty weight given to the thinking of people like Friedrich Nietzsche, Darwin, Freud. Now, Darwin's a quasi-scientist. Freud's a doctor. Nietzsche, philosopher. Let me get this picture. Nietzsche's supposedly famous, you know, for really carrying out the philosophical implications of Darwin. Okay, so let's be completely consistent atheists. If we're going to brace atheistic evolutionism, let's be consistent about it, and let's have a truly atheistic philosophy, and be honest about it, the stark nature of it. In a lot of ways, that's exactly what he did. Beyond good and evil, there's no ethics, there's no now, no, no, no, no. Pretend, pretend, pretend, pretend, pretend, pretend, pretend. But interestingly enough, when it comes to the obvious implication of atheism, death is the end. Well, Nietzsche said, I wouldn't be so sure about that. And he came up with the concept of the eternal return. Now, he didn't come up with it, he resurrected it from ancient Greek philosophy. Empedocles, Zeno. And so, what happens? The world plays itself out, and then it just starts over again. And so, at some point in the future, you'll be here again. and you'll be exactly who you are now. And you do all the same stuff you did this time. Now what's particularly insightful in a deceitful way about this is it takes care of two mighty problems that people feel. It assures them of two things. Number one, Nobody ever answers to God for anything. There is no judgment. There's no judgment. There's no God. There's this eternal cycle that you're in. And the wonderful thing is you never run out of life. You always get your life back. So no need to fear death all that much. Not only are you not going to answer to anybody, but it's really not even the end. You get to do it all again, and then again, and then again. And if you relatively liked your life, well, that's pretty good news. And the significance of what Jesus says here, if you learn the lesson of the fig tree, is he simply says, well, they are very, very nice, but reality is actually nothing like that. Nothing like that. Reality is like the cycle of the fig tree. Learn the parable of the fig tree and you'll learn that your existence is not circular, but linear, like the cycle of the fig tree. That once the leaves bud, then summer comes. Summer comes. Absolutely certain. Absolutely certain. Paul put it this way. 2 Corinthians 5, 10. This would be perfectly in line with Jesus' eschatological outlook. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one will receive what was due for what was done in the body, whether good or evil. We're all going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. That's how it's going to be. And it won't be some vague God in general there. Be Jesus, the Son of God. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Very particular. Very particular. When my brother got serious about faith things when he was 16 years old, I was 12 years old. He started to listen to a lot of Christian music, which I had never heard of. I didn't even know there was a Christian. I listened to popular top 40 sorts of music stations in Chicago, WLS, and it was my favorite, WLS, WCFL. In those days before all the, how many of them, FM stations took off. But in the 60s, it was still just those around 1970. My brother came to faith, and he started to buy these records. And one of the records that he, groups that he got involved in, ironically, kind of almost presciently, because he would later sing in a traveling quartet, was a very famous quartet that called themselves the Imperials. And they produced quite a number of albums. In fact, they're one of the few artists from those times that you can still, you can find multiple albums of theirs still on something like Spotify. And they wrote ones tongue-in-cheek sort of, but also tongue-in-cheek because bitingly serious and confrontational at the same time. The song was called, Oh, Buddha. Oh, Buddha. And the lyrics went like this. Well, old Buddha was a man, and I'm sure that he meant well. But I pray for his disciples, lest they wind up in hell. So there, see, that's a little hard-hitting. Like, wow, that's a little blunt, yes. And I'm sure that old Mohammed thought he knew the way, but it won't be Har Krishna we stand before on the Judgment Day. No, it won't be old Buddha that's sitting on the throne, and it won't be old Mohammed that's calling us home. And it won't be our Krishna that plays the trumpet tune, because we're going to see the sun, not Reverend Moon. And then he went on. Well, I don't hate anybody, so please don't take me wrong. But there really is a message in this simple song. You see, there's only one way. It's Jesus. If eternal life is your goal, And meditation of the mind won't save your soul. For it won't be old Buddha who's sitting on the throne. And it won't be old Muhammad who's calling us home. And it won't be Har Krishna that plays the trumpet tune. Because we're going to see the sun, not Reverend Moon. Now that is pretty close to precisely the point that Jesus is making in the parable of the fig tree. There's this linear line that ends in end time judgment. So what is the practical point of that for us? Well, it's right there in 2 Corinthians 5. It's actually the verse before he says, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. He says this. He gives the practical implication before he states the truth. And here's the practical implication of it. So whether we are at home, or away, we make it our ambition to be pleasing to Him. Now, to be at home and away means as long as you live or if you're in the intermediate state and you've died and you're just waiting for the resurrection, you'll have exactly the same personal ambition. to be pleasing to God. If you have this, if you've learned the lesson of the fig tree, there's no way you can't have this outlook about your life. You must then have as your ambition, whether you live or die, to be pleasing to Him. There it is. Thirdly, we'll just briefly touch on this. Jesus assures us that there's nothing more certain than His Word, verse 31. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Heaven and earth may pass away, but My words will not pass away. My middle daughter is relatively likely to move to Scotland soon. And if she does that, if she does that, my wife and I will likely go see her there, though I don't like international travel. I like driving about the United States. I don't like seven, eight, nine-hour flights in planes. I don't like them a little bit. I don't like them sort of. But if my daughter's there, we'll probably do that. Probably, almost certainly do that. And I won't look forward to those flights. But I'll tell you one thing that I won't worry about at all on that flight. I won't spend two seconds wondering about this. I won't be thinking, I hope Scotland's still there when we get ready to land. I hope it's still there. No. Spugs Bunny would say, what a maroon! What a maroon! Of course it'll be there! Of course it'll be there! Yes! Of course it will be there! Certain to be there! And Jesus is saying here, in fact, the only thing more certain than that would be a word from me Because eventually, the present age is going to pass away. But my words are never going to pass away. They're always going to remain. They're always going to have been completely valid. Heaven and earth will pass away. They'll eventually be a new heaven and a new earth. The present age is going to pass away. But my words, in contrast, they will never pass away. Mark's gospel, which we've been making our way through, and we'll just close with this, that we're about to, in the next few months, we'll wrap it up in Mark's gospel. Near the end of Mark's gospel, he has this little phrase that he uses a couple of different times, and I really do think you're supposed to note it, and you're supposed to weight it. first time of the two that it occurs, it relates to when Jesus sends the disciples to go find the place to celebrate the Passover, and he gives them this really convoluted thing they have to walk through, and it sounds, you know, unreasonably up in the air. They got to meet this guy and follow this guy, and then they get to the place, and then they say this, and then this happens, and it's like, But once it all happens, here's how Mike describes it. And the disciples went forth into the city, and they found it all just as he had said to them. And they made ready the passover. Now the little phrase we're interested in, and they found it just as he said to them. The Greek text is a little kathos. Kathos. They found it just as. They found it just as. They found it just exactly as he had said to them. He uses the same phrase right at the end, especially if, as I think you were right to do in Mark, is to take the shorter ending of Mark It occurs the next time in the next to the last verse. In Mark, let me read into it. It's Mark's account of the resurrection. Here's what he says. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, who will roll the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back. It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting to the right side, dressed in a white robe. They were alarmed. And he said to them, don't be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth. who was crucified, he's risen. He's not here. See the place where they laid him? And now verse seven. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will meet him. And here's the phrase again. Just as he said. Just as he said. Now when you look at a text like ours and then put it together with a little language like that, you see the lesson of the fig tree and those little phrases, they make exactly the same point. It's a simple point, but it's a profound point. Especially in our age, where there's just philosophical disagreement all over the place. You have the argument from this side, and the argument from that side, and the argument over here, and the argument over there. And then you have the overall ethos of the time. Well, everything is relatively relative, but if you're in upper echelon of intellectual circles. But the truth is to the left. The truth is always to the left. And the New Testament response to that is not, the truth is to the right. No, it isn't. The Christian response is, the truth is just as Jesus said. Reality will turn out to be in the end. Reality will turn out to be in every aspect. Reality will turn out to be just as Jesus said it would turn out to be. So you and I are urged with some confidence to bet all of our lives on just what Jesus said, because heaven and earth will pass away But my words, my words will not pass away. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the great privilege of possessing Your words, your words in the Hebrew Bible, your words in the New Testament, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ is taken down in the power of your spirit by your apostles, your words, which lay out for us just what reality will turn out to have been and to be And may we see your promises as the place in which we take our stand, and your wisdom as the guide by which we shape our lives, and your warnings as the things that cause us to run from certain realities, for you have warned us against them. We pray for all of this in Jesus' name, amen.