As they were leaving the temple disciples made a comment to him about its beauty. That prompted a response from Jesus about the temple's coming destruction and the end of the age. Today on Truth for Life Alistair Begg helps us unravel some of the mysterious comments Jesus made. Alistair is teaching from the Gospel of Mark chapter 13. And Jesus gives a word of instruction, this temple is actually going to be destroyed. When you get to verse 3, Mark tells us that there was a private question when they were on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple.
Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately. Now, what struck me as I studied it again this week was not the question that they asked to which were going to come—namely, when—but the question that they didn't ask—namely, why. Why didn't they ask him why is it going to be destroyed?
Was it that they understood perfectly all that the Old Testament prophets had said? I think it's probably that they were just preoccupied with the when. It's far more intriguing to ask questions about when than to understand the significance of the why. But we need to understand it. The short answer to the why question—"Why is the temple going to be destroyed?
"—the short answer is, because it's no longer going to be needed. And the destruction of the temple is actually a judgment on the spiritual blindness of those to whom Jesus came. Remember, he came to his own, and his own received him not.
Here he is, saying these things. And the Pharisees are immediately opposed to him, saying, We must destroy him. And now Jesus explains to his disciples, The very temple which is the epicenter of everything you regard about knowing God, it is going to be brought down. If you read this morning part of the reading through the New Testament, you will now, as you hear my voice, be saying to yourself, Well, that ties in a little bit with what we saw this morning in John chapter 9.
And you would have read this morning the encounter of Jesus with the boy who was blind. He heals him, remember? They said to him, that is, to the fellow, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I've told you already, and you wouldn't listen.
Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? And they reviled him, saying, You're his disciple, but we are the disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but it's for this man we do not know where he comes from.
The man answered, Why, this is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him.
Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered him, You were born in utter sin, and you would teach us, and they cast him out. That's what was unfolding in this great drama that is leading to the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross. Indeed, the next point in the calendar for the temple was what?
It was the drama that unfolded when the curtain in the temple was torn in two. And suddenly, all that had been represented as a barrier to God, particularly to the non-Jew—for they were only allowed into the court of the Gentiles, they could not go into the court of the Jews, only the high priests could go into the holy of holies in order to represent them, first having made sacrifice for his own sins, and all of a sudden—boom!—the curtain is torn in two. And now the gospel that is to be preached to all the nations is about to unfold. And for those of you who look at this and say, The gospel has to be preached to all the nations before he returns, and you're immediately saying, And that means before the return of Jesus Christ, it surely means before the return of Jesus Christ, but it actually also means before the events of AD 70. The gospel was going to go out. The disciples were going to stand up in Jerusalem and say, There is no other name under heaven by which you must be saved.
It's the name of Jesus. So the question they don't ask is a significant question. And what Jesus is pointing out is that it is easy for them, even them, to be distracted by the magnificence of externalized religion, of all the things that had been put in place. But they were the façade, if you like, pointing to the reality.
They were the present that was pointing to the future. Calvin says of the disciples, The vast size and wealth of the temple hung like a veil before the eyes of the disciples, preventing them from elevating their faith to the true reign of Christ. It wasn't simply that those who were stuck, if you like, with the law of Moses didn't get it. The disciples themselves were in danger of missing it until they recognized all that this Jesus, whom they had committed themselves to follow, had come to do. You see, it is only when we come to terms with the ultimate emptiness of externalized religious endeavor that the story of a person who has lived a perfect life—the life that we should live but can't—the story of a person who has died in our place a death that we deserve but could never pay, it is only when, if you like, the temple structures of our religious orthodoxy have crumbled that we will then say, Well, only in Christ, only in this Savior, only in this sacrifice, is the answer to my sin. And some of us are there this morning. It would be an unusual Sunday.
Well, that's not the case. There are people who come here every Sunday, and you still have not made the transition. The transition from what represents religious endeavor and the hopes of acceptance with God as a result of all that you're seeking to do, you have still not given up on that and cast yourself entirely on the mercy and grace and provision of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. You are, if you like, still saying, This is a magnificent structure, this is a terrific building, and I'm glad that I can meet God there. There is no special place to meet God anymore. Jesus is no more present in the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem than he is on the Via Pettibone in Bainbridge. And there are no special rooms, and there are no special buildings, and there's no sanctuary.
Do you understand that? How many times do I have to tell you that there is no such thing as a sanctuary? That is Roman Catholicism. That is not the Bible. Jesus is no more present in this room than he is in the men's toilets out there. Now, if that doesn't make the point, nothing will. Or the ladies, for that matter.
That's okay. I'm not saying that you have to go in the gents. The fact is that the destruction of that notion has to take place before a person lays hold of Christ. The poster boy for this is Saul of Tarsus, isn't he? Saul of Tarsus, when the people come to Saul and Paul, and they're claiming their benefits and their religious heritage and their demanding of the people in Philippi, that they do all of these things for acceptance with God, he says, Guys, there's no point in you playing this game, because I understand it perfectly. If ever there was a person, he says, who understood what it meant to try and get acceptance with God on the basis of externals, I am your main man.
Listen to the paraphrase of what he says. You know my pedigree—a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day, an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin, a strict and devout adherent to God's law, a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting Christians, a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law book. In other words, he is like the fellow in the story told by Jesus about the two men who went to the temple to pray. He is the guy who stood up and prayed to himself, and he said, I thank you, Father, that I'm not as other men are. And certainly not like this character who's here, who won't even lift his eyes up to heaven.
That's Saul. That's religion. Religion says, Do this, and you'll be accepted by God.
So I'm going to do it as best I possibly can, and hopefully I'll do enough to be accepted. When are you going to stop doing that? When you discover that it doesn't work, when you discover that you can't, and when you discover that you don't need to.
But until you do, you will keep doing it. That's the transformation that brought about in Saul's life. This is what he said.
These people are waving these credentials around. He said, I'm tearing them up and throwing them out, along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Jesus Christ as my master firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant.
I dumped it. I dumped it so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ, God's righteousness. I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally. Take the conversion of Luther. Cursed of Rome in great anguish of Saul, seeking somehow or another to discover just how he could be righteous enough before God.
Up and down the scala Santa, doing everything he can, finding himself even more depressed than when he went on his vacation in the first place. And then suddenly the light goes on, and he realizes that this righteousness is a righteousness not that we produce in order to be accepted by God but a righteousness that has been granted in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as a free gift. Why could Paul give up on all of that heritage? Because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
Why would the temple be no longer necessary? For the very same reason. Well, that's the question they don't ask. But what about the question they do ask?
We should say something about that, because some of you are getting really ticked off now, because this is two weeks and we still haven't started. But anyway, it's, What is the question they do ask? Verse 4, Tell us when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished? In Matthew, he adds what is implicit here in Mark and Luke. Don't take my word for it.
Just think about it. Listen to Matthew's question—or the question as Matthew records it. Because, remember, these fellows are like journalists. They're writing down the events as they've taken place. Not the journalist for the Daily Telegraph doesn't necessarily put the same exact detail as you find in the Times.
They're covering the same event. This is Matthew. Tell us, they said, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the close of the age? Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the close of the age? You see, because the disciples could not imagine a world without the temple. If the temple came down, it was over.
So when Jesus says, This whole thing is coming down, they said, It's the end of the world. So tell us what in the world's gonna happen now, and when is this going to happen? Give us a sign. Give us some indication.
In the same way that someone says, Well, if there's a McDonald's, as soon as you see the McDonald's, it's two streets after that. Give us something like that so that we've got an idea. Now, there are two elements, there are two motifs—and with this I have to finish—but there are two significant notions run entirely through this text. You understand motif, you understand? You can use the word motif, right?
M-o-t-i-f. There is the destruction of the temple and the dreadful sacking of Jerusalem. And there is also the ultimate destruction that is going to come at the end of the age. Now, both these motifs are present in the text, and it is imperative that we read the text with those two notions in mind and in recognition of the fact that there are, if you like, two stages of fulfillment, and it's not always easy to fit one into the other.
Those of us who do Lego or who like Lego—and I'm going back into my childhood again, I just bought another Lego thing the other day, it was horribly embarrassing, and going in there like a big baby and buying Lego, but nevertheless, you've got all those little pieces, you've got to put them out and make sure they're all there, and they've all got to absolutely fit if you are obsessively compulsive in any way at all to drive you insane if anybody loses one of those under the dining room table. So if you come to Mark chapter 13 like that, like you're putting it together like a Lego set, you will go nuts if you haven't already gone crazy. Because the great future—the great future, the end of all things—is described from the point of view of Judea and Jerusalem.
Right? But the application to Judea and Jerusalem implies that the ultimate significance of what is being taught breaks the boundaries of that immediate historical context. Now, let me illustrate it for you, if I may, because you can see that that went over really well. Verse 14, for example—well, we wouldn't even have to go to verse 14. Let's go to verse 7. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. Somebody says, Well, that is clearly the end of the age, because there were no wars and rumors of wars.
What? You don't know any history? You don't know any history?
Jewish history at all? There were all kinds of wars and rumors of wars before the sacking of the temple in AD 70. Yeah, but there's gonna be wars and rumors of wars ultimately at the end. True. And frankly, there's wars and rumors of wars every day of the week. That's also true.
So what do we know? That the two stages of fulfillment coalesce with one another. So, for example, verse 14, the abomination of desolation cannot be restricted to the temple. Because if you read the Old Testament phraseology in relationship to the abomination of desolation in Daniel, it points far beyond anything that might take place there. And it points forward to the reality of the Antichrist. Now, we shouldn't be alarmed by this.
In fact, we should rejoice in this. Because what this actually is is the comprehensive nature of prophetic teaching. That's why, when you read the Old Testament, and you read either prophetic passages in the Psalms or you read in the prophets themselves, you frequently discover that future events, which in their fulfillment are separated from one another by centuries—okay? So, future events, which, when fulfilled, are separated by centuries—you will discover them set side by side in the text, or you will discover them set down in a way that is linear. But it's clearly not the case. And the challenge is that they can't ultimately be separated from one another.
And when you find somebody who tells you that they know exactly how to do it, you should be a little more afraid of him than you ought to be of me. Because the final desecration of the temple and the great final distress at the end of the age, they coalesce with one another. What you have in the destruction of the temple is a type. What you have at the end of the age is the antitype.
In other words, what you have in the destruction of the temple is a foreshadowing of that which will ultimately be the case. And the challenge in going through this is in being prepared to say, you know, this is like hill walking in the Lake District of England, or in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. If you and I go walking in those hills—and we've said this before—as we make our way up the side of the hill, we look to what we think is the summit. It may be 450 yards ahead of us.
We get up to it, and what do we discover? We're not at the summit. There is another summit beyond the summit. And we may proceed to do that to the height in Scotland of some four and a half thousand feet before we actually finally get to the summit. But from the perspective of seven hundred feet above sea level, it appears that within just a quarter of a mile, we have seen it all, and we are there for the view.
We set off, and we discover we're not. When you read through the prophecies of Isaiah, you find the exact same thing happening. And therefore, the explanation of Mark chapter 13 is not that it is an aberration from the comprehensive view of prophecy, which is given to us in the entire Bible, but rather it fits in with it entirely. So I want you to know that so that you'll keep it in mind as we study it. And before you throw your hands up in despair, keep in mind where we began. The purpose of Mark chapter 13 is pastoral, and it is practical.
Jesus is providing instruction to equip his followers in the immediate context of Judea and Jerusalem, and to equip all of his followers in every age in relationship to the prospect of that which will be at the end of the age. So, whatever we do with this passage, we walk away from it, and we say, We're watching. We're waiting. We're hoping. We're praying. We're saying, Let your kingdom come.
Let your will be done, so that the world might know, Lord Jesus Christ, that you are the King, that you are not some remote figure of history buried away in a Palestinian tomb, but you are the risen Lord, you are the ascended King, you are the returning Christ. That is the import of it. And one of the greatest tragedies of studying passages like this is that that has largely failed to be the import of it. Because people want to study it like a Lego said, rather than allow it to be what it is—namely, a mathematical Venn diagram, where the circles coalesce with one another, and at that epicenter of it all, when one day in that great denouement Christ appears, the things that we can see only dimly now will become apparent to us.
Well, let's just pray. O God, how we need your help, how it humbles us to be students of the Bible in a passage like this, how it forces us to advance to the reality of the practical, not theoretical, nature of this instruction. Help us so to read, so to study, so to believe, so to behave, in the light of your truth, for Jesus' sake. Amen. It is our hope that this study in Mark's Gospel is giving you a clearer picture of Jesus' ministry, what it was like to be one of his disciples.
You're listening to Truth for Life. Alistair Begg has titled today's message, A Question for Jesus. It's one thing to imagine a first-century conversation between Jesus and his followers.
It's another thing to imagine the same kind of relationship with him today. Can we truly know Jesus the way his disciples did? And if so, how do we follow his direction for our family, for our personal choices, even things like our career?
John Stott wrote a classic book that helps answer these questions and others. It's a book we'd love to send you. It's called The Disciple, God's Word for Today, and it's yours when you request it along with a donation to support Truth for Life. In this brief book, Stott helps fine-tune how we listen to God.
He reminds us that God is still speaking and communicating with us through his Word. He offers practical help on training our minds so that our emotions don't divert us from clear biblical thinking. To give a donation and request the book titled The Disciple, call 888-588-7884 or tap the book image in the mobile app. You can also give a donation and request the book online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Keep in mind it's your generous support of Truth for Life that brings Alistair's teaching to listeners like you through radio and through many other free channels. Thanks for investing so people can hear clear and relevant Bible teaching. When you give, you're helping other listeners become disciples of Jesus and grow in their relationship with him. To send your contribution along with your request for John Stott's book, write to Truth for Life at P.O.
Box 398000 Cleveland, Ohio 44139 or again call 888-588-7884. Jesus warned his disciples that the end of the age was coming. He said to look out for even more signs. So what should we make of this caution? I'm Bob Lapine hoping you'll join us again tomorrow as Alistair provides a biblical answer. His message Tuesday is titled Signs of the End. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
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