Warned (Part B)

The question again is, why do some people have a problem with God being intolerant with people who are intolerant of Him? So they're upset that He's going to have this wrath against sinners who refuse Him. God's not fooling around. He said this on the subject of the end times, remember Lot's wife, and just left it like that. He expects us to figure it out.

to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Warned is the title of Pastor Rick's message today. He'll be teaching in Mark chapter 13. This is, of course, what the preceding verses were all about, Jesus laying out this end times scenario. Earthlings will be shocked when Christians are extracted, but they will have their hands filled with a lot of other things, and there will be power plays and wars and natural disasters, and these things will keep going and escalate, and it will be a time, as Jesus said, such as the world has never known. He says here, not even the angels in heaven. It's classified, the day of the Lord, that ignites the tribulation period. Once that rapture comes, it starts.

He says, nor the Son. Well, this actually is a very easy answer. You may be saying, how could Jesus not know when the day of the rapture is, if He is God the Son?

And the answer is quite simple. When He spoke these words, these are the days of His self-imposed limitation. He is humanity. He restricted Himself in many ways, and we certainly, well, for instance, they crucified Him. You see, that was a restriction that He placed upon Himself. I can call 12 legions of angels.

In fact, I don't even need the angels. He could have done it that way, but He did not, and what He is saying to us, I am submitting myself so that I can save those who will come to Me. His deity was never put on hold. He was always God, from the time in Mary to always God, but His sovereignty is sort of like God tied His hands behind His back sort of thing.

For example, Christ was not ubiquitous. He was not everywhere at the same time, but if He wanted to find something out, all He had to do was ask His Father. In fact, when He says the Son doesn't know if these disciples knew what we knew, if I were standing in that group knowing what I know now, I would have said, well, can you ask the Father? Because He's going to tell you, and then tell us.

But of course, it didn't play out that way because I wasn't there. So, the Son does not know in His humanity. He would suffer in His humanity. Luke's Gospel, chapter 17, verse 25, but first, speaking of Himself, He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And so, in His humanity, He suffered, but never in His glory. After the resurrection, there's no more getting to Christ, Hebrews 9, 28. So, Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, so much for those who think that He is repeatedly suffering. That is a lie. It is unbiblical.

It is against what is clearly taught. He continues in Hebrews 9, to those who eagerly wait for Him, He will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation. So, He humbled Himself in the form of a servant.

Paul writes to the Philippians. And there was a progression. It was a development in Christ. As Luke tells us, He grew in stature with men.

You know, had you not known I was about my Father's business? And there was this development. And as you travel through the New Testament, you begin to discover the difference between the days of His humanity and the days of His glory. And I like to think that I stayed on this a bit when we went through the Gospel of Luke. And so, these disciples are going to ask Him this question again after His resurrection. And then, of course, He is now in His glorified form.

He is not limited. And Acts chapter 1, verse 6, Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? Sort of asking the same question a different way.

Maybe to like, you know, catch them off guard a bit. Of course, I'm not sure that's what happened, but I like to see it that way. Anyway, and He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. He could have said, I told you, I don't know.

But He does know at this point because this self-imposed limitation is gone now. He is not admitting here to being ignorant, but subject to the Father and having dawned humanity on Him. That humanity of Christ was dismissed at Calvary. Father, into Your hands a commandment.

That was the end of it. Now He is the Christ that walked with them. As Paul said, We knew Him according to the flesh.

We know Him no more. The Christ Jesus that they walked with through Galilee was in His glorified state much more. And this is why when He appears to John in the Revelation, John says, I fell down dead before Him.

And He touched me and told me to fear not. And so there you have another picture of this changed relationship, which He eased into those disciples. So that after His resurrection, He sort of appeared to them and they were like, Who is this guy? You know, they weren't sure.

This is the Lord, you know, and that development is clear. Mary Magdalene didn't really care about the development. She just loved Him.

John and the others hesitated a little bit. Mary Magdalene grabbed hold of Him. And of course, we know, don't cling to me. Don't get used to me being here, Mary.

I'm not staying. But these are pictures of our Lord and how He conducted business when He was here. And He insisted that His followers cultivate an attitude of alertness concerning His return. Again, as they're listening to this, they're not putting it all together, but they're going to be grabbing hold of the things He said once He ascends into heaven. And they've gone through the crucifixion resurrection with Him, as far as witnesses of it all. Daniel, and Christ dealt with this in verse 14, when he talks about the desolation, quoting Daniel 12, and from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be 1290 days, a three and a half year period of the great tribulation of Jacob's trouble. So the world will be going through tribulation, and then at the three and a half year mark, Israel will really go through it. The day of the Lord that will then not, does not include His church, starts at the rapture, and lasts for over a thousand years. Even when Christ returns, that is still under the umbrella of that prophecy, the day of the Lord. It's a very broad prophecy. The prophets, they neither spoke nor wrote about the church.

It was that foreign of a concept. It was held back, and rightfully so, because it was hard enough for the Jewish Christians to begin to depart from Judaism. That's why we have Paul's letter to the Hebrews saying, stop it. You're no longer Jewish as far as religion goes. You're Christians now, and if you continue this, the cross of Christ won't profit you.

It is obsolete. And he goes into Melchizedek and Abraham before Levi was even born, and it's just quite remarkable how he shuts down this, having an idea of this hybrid religion called Judaism, a mixture, the Judaizers, sorry, not Judaism. Judaizers were trying to merge Christianity with Judaism.

Hope I didn't lose you on that, but we've got more here. Verse 33, Take heed, watch, and pray, for you do not know when the time is. Now, I should say, you might go into your Bible commentaries or study Bibles and find a different perspective on the end time scenario.

That's fine. These are not always that critical of an issue as to how you see the timeline. I don't share a lot of views about the end times with a lot of good men of God. For instance, some struggle with placing this event in the tribulation, and I just don't see how you could make that fit.

This has to be to the church. Christ has already mentioned to them about what's going to happen. So where he says here in verse 33, Take heed, watch, and pray, for you do not know when the time is. In Luke 21, he said, Watch, therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man, which is very broad in that statement because it includes those who will die long before the end times.

The thing you get out of that verse, I think primary, is to stand before the Son of God, whether you die in the tribulation or are raptured or long before the rapture. That is the objective, to stand before the Lord Jesus. Now, how could you say such a thing unless he was God? I mean, imagine if I said to you, you know, you just can't be ready to be able to stand before me when you die. It would be blasphemous. You would have to be God to be able to say to someone, they are going to stand before you. And when he says the Son of Man, he's talking about his humanity, his identification with sinners, the days of his limitation.

That is what that whole meaning was about, the Son of Man, meaning that God came as a human being, born of a virgin, and humbled himself for our sakes. We are not to forget about that fig tree. That's a critical lesson to end times.

Keep our eyes on Israel's. And that's why he says, take heed. Then he says, well, take heed means to think, something that comes hard to some Christians, it seems. We're so ready for the miraculous, for the supernatural, for the emotional. And, I mean, I love to feel emotionally lifted as well as the next guy, but that does not give me the right to believe in things just because I like them. I have to find out if they're true. You know, all the Christians were stirred up over the blood moon thing. Oh boy, oh boy.

And look, he gave us the fig tree. I don't agree with those applications. The other moon will turn to blood, as the prophet Joel and others had said it will.

But I don't agree with the application. Not to say that those who made it are somehow not saved, and that's not what I'm dealing with. I'm dealing with, we have to be careful when someone begins to talk about end times, if they can connect it to the scriptures throughout. Well, anyway, it's tricky. First Thessalonians 5, but you brethren are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief.

No Christian should be caught off guard when it comes to the rapture of the church in the end times, because, again, the lessons have been taught. So he says, watch, that means work. Those of you who've been in the military, you've stood guard duty, you know that it's a lot of work.

I mean, you just like after the first 10 minutes, you're ready to leave, but you have to stay. I don't know what it is today, knowing what they're doing, the sissification of the military. They probably stand guard duty for eight minutes now, but for me it was four hours walking around a building. And, you know, nobody showed up so they didn't get the satisfaction of shooting anyone. Anyway, I strike that from the record, that was not nice.

Well, they deserved it. Anyway, guard duty is work. You know, laziness does not bring glory to the Lord. Never.

First Thessalonians 5, 6. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. You sleep on guard duty and get caught as a court-martial. There's no nonsense about those kind of things.

At least where I was, I don't know, maybe you served somewhere where they kind of, you know, took a nap with you. But watch, he says, again, First Thessalonians 5, 3. For when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes.

So be ready for these things. That's why I'm telling you, he's saying to us. Why do some people have a problem with God being intolerant of people who are intolerant of him? I mean, atheism is one of the most insane things on earth, and now today's atheists are militant atheists. They're not satisfied with live and let live. Okay, fine, you believe in Christ. No, they are going after Christians trying to dismantle their belief.

They're writing long pages, they have blogs, they're writing books, they are targeting Christians. And the question again is, why do some people have a problem with God being intolerant with people who are intolerant of him? So they're upset that he's going to have this wrath against sinners who refuse him. God's not fooling around. He said this on the subject of the end times.

Remember Lot's wife? And just left it like that. He expects us to figure it out when there's enough information, to connect the dots because they're there. And so he says, watch. Then he says, pray.

Well, before I get to the pray, one other verse I want to talk about in connection to take heed and watch. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. So everybody's got a way out. It's not as though God is saying, I'm just going to judge sinners and you're stuck.

There's nothing you can do about it. No, God says there's a way out through Jesus Christ. He's not appointed us for wrath.

And that's what the extraction is all about. He says, pray. Pray means to serve with God, not apart from God. You know, Martha was just serving until she got corrected. She was serving in her own strength. She had made the minors become major. Mary kept the majors the majors.

She sat at the feet of the Lord. Jesus said, you know what? I can get food somewhere else. I don't really need you, Martha, to make a meal for me.

I will eat it if you bring it. But understand it is the preaching of the word that is paramount. And Mary has chosen this and I'm not taking it away from her.

Mary, Martha never complained again to the Lord about such things. So the word is part of it. Praying is essential. Serving is critical. Getting up when you've been beaten down is routine. There's not a Christian that does not have to deal with sin in themselves and sin in others.

And it's ongoing. And if you're waiting to reach the state of perfection in this life, it's not going to happen. However, you can be matured and developed and learn how to deal with these things in a biblical way that is pleasing to the Lord. And this is why some of the sins of the New Testament saints are captured for us, but many of them of the Old Testament saints. Again, look at King David. I mean, he's an old man. He's written so much of the Bible and in the Psalms.

And he's still falling on his face. And God is still forgiving him. But there are great consequences to his sin, too. And I don't think any of us want to have the consequence of sin upon us. And so we strive to be Christ-like. Well, to do that, you're going to have to be in fellowship with him and praying is a part of it. I pray primarily at this stage in my life because I don't have a choice. I have this relationship with Christ. And even when I feel like pouting and just, you know what, I don't know why God has done this.

I don't like that he's done this. I'm not saying anything. And they're saying, you know, I'm praying to him because I know him. He is my God. And I am his servant. And I can't help but talk to him no matter what. And I talk to him about a lot of you, too. You know, it's too much to pray for.

It's just too much. I try to get in and sneak some prayers in for every meal. Or any time I eat something, I try to offer up a prayer. And Paul says, I make mention of you in my prayers.

Because it was too many people. But it counts. And the righteous, they willfully have no choice but to pray. So I encourage you, talk to God. Verse 34, he says, it is like a man going to a far country who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to each his work and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Well this, again, in the upper room, he tells them, I'm going to leave you. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And I will come back and I will receive you. John 14, 3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you will be also.

And so this little parable that he's given, this parabolic illustration, he says it's like a man going on a journey to a far country. Well from the perspective of his disciples, heaven was a far country. Not to God, of course. He would be gone.

He'd be gone for a long time. He's telling his church. At the end he's saying, what I say to you, I say to all. We read that when we stood and read.

In verse 37, what I say to you, I say to all. Watch. Well, he's been gone 2,000 years and he's never walked back.

Watch. There's so much work that gets done in that. He says, like a man who's going to a far country who left his house and gave authority to his servants. That's the church age. This is exactly what he's talking about.

Nothing else fits so smoothly. In Luke 19, in a parable, speaking about his servants, serving while the master was away, he says, do business till I come. The old King James, I like its language more in this verse. It says, occupy until I come.

Because I think of an occupying force. Anyway, we are now in the times of the Gentiles, which produced the church age, the age of grace, by faith in the word. We're not in the age of miracles. And as I've been saying, the fig tree signals the approaching conclusion to the church age. The time of the Gentiles, it began in, well, 586 years before Christ came. The glory departed from Israel. Jerusalem was trodden by a Babylonian army.

When Nebuchadnezzar came and conquered Jerusalem, Ezekiel chapter 10, he talks about the Shekinah, the presence of the Lord, reluctantly and in phases, departing the temple until it was gone. And this is the age where the Gentiles have domination over Jerusalem, over Israel. And though that is now going away, it's still there to some degree, but it is nowhere like it was before 1948. Before 1948, the Jews just had no say so. Now they're a sovereign state. God terminated, when Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem 586 years before Christ was born, God terminated their secular supremacy in the region. Remember David conquered Solomon and they held all the people in check and they paid them money. Well, not only that, both the king, the office of the king and the priesthood were lost to Israel. And the Gentile domination began. Now they got back some of the priesthood.

It largely stayed corrupted, but in Christ's day the priesthood was corrupted. Luke 21 verse 24, and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away captive into all nations and Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Again, the times of the Gentiles started back when Nebuchadnezzar trampled Jerusalem and they really never got back their kingdom. They have not had a king on the throne in Jerusalem since that time. Romans chapter 11 verse 25, For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

And that's where we are right now. This is the church age. The church age started with, of course, Pentecost. But the times of the Gentiles started before that with Nebuchadnezzar. Israel will be fully restored when Messiah returns. Gentile domination stops completely at Armageddon. So the fullness of the Gentiles will have seven years left at the rapture. Then God will again begin to speak to the world through the Jews. Romans 11 verse 26, And so all Israel will be saved as it is written. The deliverer will come out of Zion and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. I hope none of you believe that kingdom theology stuff. That's so unbiblical. It just kind of gets rid of Israel.

It denies Israel from being Israel. It's madness. I don't want to deal with that right now. Really, I don't want to deal with it ever. It's so dumb.

But a lot of people like it. It's Satan because it makes you an enemy of God's chosen people as his time clock, which is Israel. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.