Signs of the End

Music playing It's a question a lot of people are asking today, but it's not a new question. Jesus' disciples ask him the same thing. And today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg is teaching from Mark chapter 13, verses 5 through 13. He's titled today's message, Signs of the End. It's nice to know that other people, other than crazy Christians, are predicting the end of the universe. But whether it is some kind of biblical prophetic interpretation or unbiblical prediction, what they both have in common is an attempt to disprove what Jesus says clearly in the thirty-second verse of this chapter—namely, that concerning that day or that hour, no one knows.

And the fanciful notions that surround the question of the return of Jesus and the end of civilization as we know it continue unabated. And clearly, that was the case in the context in which Jesus was speaking. You will see that there are four individuals with Jesus that are engaged in this dialogue. Two of them wrote letters—Peter and John. And when John wrote—and the reason I mention this is because one of the questions that inevitably comes to mind is, these fellows were there to ask the question. Jesus gave them the answers to their question. How, then, did they apply it when they in turn were the teachers of others?

Did they get off on sidetracks with this material, or did they stay, if you like, straight down the middle of the thoroughfare? Well, the answer is, in 1 John chapter 3, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, writes John—that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. There's not any doubt in his mind. This is not theoretical.

This is absolutely practical. And he drives home the implications of it on this occasion, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. When Peter writes his first letter to the scattered Christians of his day, his introduction to his letter is along the same lines. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3, "'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' he says."

It begins with this great exclamation of praise. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And then he goes on to say, "'And in this you rejoice, even though for a little while you may face trials of various kinds, in the fact that you know that these trials have come to test your faith so as to prove how genuine it is, and you may be in no doubt that this same God who is bringing you through this is guarding you and keeping you and will bring everything to fulfillment and to fruition.'" In other words, the return of Jesus Christ is not a piece of theological lumber.

And it comes across clearly, then, in the way Peter writes. He starts from the fact that God the Father has displayed his mercy in the atoning death of his Son. This has been applied to the lives of those who have believed. They have been born again to a living hope. That living hope is on account of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

If he was still in a Palestinian tomb, there is no hope. But he is not. He has risen. He is the ascended King. Therefore, there is an inheritance—an inheritance that is not like your retirement package, is not like your stock portfolio, is not like all your stuff that will eventually go in a garage sale.

It is not like that at all. It is imperishable, it is undefiled, and is kept in heaven for you. For who? For those who are awaiting the return of Jesus Christ. The absolute, visible, physical, glorious, definite return of Jesus of Nazareth. So don't let any of us be in any, any, any confusion concerning this.

Nobody is standing back from that which is main and that which is plain. Jesus has promised he will return, and the Christian lives in expectation of the return of Jesus. Either he will come for us first, or we will go to meet him.

But see him we will, and return he will, even as he's promised. Now, not everybody believes this. Not even some people who apparently profess themselves to be Christians believe this. I hear people telling me that the return of Jesus Christ was a spiritual return, and that he returned in the hearts and minds of his followers, and that's what stirred them up post-resurrection and so on.

It's a kind of futile notion. And liberal scholarship just dismisses Mark chapter 13 just wholesale. And the equivalent passage is in 24 of Matthew and 21 of Luke. It just says Jesus didn't say any of this stuff. But that's the standard by which liberal scholarship works. We are not starting from there at all.

No. Jesus, in this discourse on the Mount of Olives, is pastoral in his concern, strengthening and sustaining the faith of his followers. And the request, which we've noted a couple of times now, is there in verse 4, tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished. The mind of the disciples cannot conceive of a time without the temple in Jerusalem, and therefore they collate two things—one, the destruction of the temple, and the end of the age.

When is all this going to unfold? And that kind of twofold dimension then runs, as we've said, in a telescopic fashion all the way through the reply of Jesus. So the request is straightforward, and the response, you will notice, begins in verse 5. Mark tells us that at that point Jesus began to say to them, first of all, do not be led astray. See that no one leads you astray. In other words, what he's saying is there's a real possibility that you could be led astray. There's no reason to say, See that you're not led astray, if there's no chance of being led astray. The means of grace that God has given to us in the reading of the Bible, in prayer, in the fellowship of his people, in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, in the issues of church discipline and so on—all of these things are to be attended upon so as to ensure that we are not led astray. You neglect your Bible, you may be led astray. You neglect the worship of God's people, you may be led astray.

One coal taken out of the fire, put over by itself, will very quickly go out, pick it back up, and put it in amongst the rest of the coals, and it will be illuminated and give warmth to the house along with the others. So this is not theoretical here on the part of Jesus. He is pastorally concerned for his followers. Remember, one of them is going to go astray—one who would have heard this discourse as it was re-reported. And they didn't do a particularly good job, did they, when everything began to turn against Christ? Now, this is an important word, isn't it? See that no one leads you astray.

And then he explains why this is pressingly important. Because, verse 6, many will come in my name, saying, I am he, and they will lead many astray. They will lead many astray.

Now, obviously, that is true of that time, but it is not limited to that time. Because the whole of human history is full of charlatans, arising generation after generation, either mismanaging the words of Jesus, attempting to portray themselves as Jesus, or explaining that Jesus means very little without their explanation, because they actually are the prophet that was the one who needed to explain the prophecies that were contained in the Bible. Many will be led astray. Many will be led astray. Because they never paid attention to who Jesus is, how Jesus came, the eternal nature of his sonship, the fact that the doctrine of the Trinity is not a piece of theological nonsense, that it is foundational, that there is a radical difference between the co-eternity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and a Jesus who is a product of a relationship.

It's vastly different. Well, we'd like to know by the end of the temple, and the world, and everything else. Well, let me just say one thing to you. Make sure you're not led astray. For people will come saying all kinds of things, and many will be led astray.

Many will be led astray. Here's a situation where there's no safety in numbers, loved ones. No safety in numbers.

This is first directive. Secondly, he says, and I do not want you to be led astray, and I do not want you to be alarmed. I don't want you to be alarmed. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Why does he say, do not be alarmed?

Because wars and rumors of warms are a basis for alarm. And if you throw in famines and earthquakes and the movement of nations against one another, these are all the kinds of things that can unsettle a person. And at the end of verse 8, these are but the beginning of birth pains.

See what Jesus is saying. Many of the things that are gonna happen to you fellows will appear to be signs of the end of the age. But they may not actually even be signs of the imminence of the end of the temple.

And once again, if you read history, you discover that of course there were wars and rumors of wars, of course there were all these kinds of things—there were earthquakes and there were famines. But why would we think there wouldn't be? Because we all have a kind of end-of-the-universe mindset. I never met anybody who thought that the end of the age was actually… I shouldn't say I've never met anybody. Most of the people who talk about the end of the world, they always talk about the end of the world as coming, like, next Tuesday. I don't ever hear very many people explaining that they think the universe is gonna go on for two and a half thousand more years. I mean, you can't write a book on that. Nobody cares.

What possible relevance does it have? No, everybody's always on the now, now, now, now, now. As if this is the first time in the universe there were famines, or earthquakes, or wars, or rumors of wars, or international peace conferences. Never lived a year yet without earthquakes, or without famines, or without international crises.

Does it exhaust it prior to seventy? Of course not. Once again, you got the telescope. You got the interweaving of these things.

Instead of being troubled or preoccupied by them, the believer is to recognize that these are just… And the metaphor he uses is a good one, the birth pains. I met somebody this week. I said, When's the baby due? She said, Well, such-and-such a date. But she said, We're not sure. Of course you're not sure.

May come early, may come a little late. We don't know. He's kicking, we understand that.

She's kicking, or they're doing the Branson Hicks or whatever those things they do. But they're just the beginning of the birth pains. Now, that's what Jesus is saying. The metaphor is a great metaphor, because, you see, for a Jewish woman, without giving birth, her life was robbed of meaning.

If she didn't give birth, she had no goal. So the beginning of the travel for a Jewish woman meant that now the significance of her life was going to be there for all to see in the fulfillment of her desire. It began with the pains, and the pains are the promise that she's going to have what she waits for with longing. And so Jesus says, When these pains come, the sufferings that come along with them will be an indication of the fact that there is a day coming that will give meaning to your lives as well. Thirdly, verse 9, I want you to be on your guard.

See the way he does this? See that no one leads you astray, and let me tell you why. Because many people will be involved as charlatans. Then, when you hear about wars and rumors of wars and stuff, do not be alarmed, because it's not the end. It's just the beginning of the birth pains.

And there's no guarantee, then, about the time that there is that exists between all of that movement and stuff and the actual arrival. Thirdly, be on your guard. Why? Well, because they're going to deliver you over to councils and beat you in the synagogues, and you'll stand before governors and kings for my sake. I mean, when's the last time you had any thought of being taken into a synagogue and given a jolly good beating? And there hasn't been a king around here for a couple hundred years at least, and even if he showed up, we'd probably give him a beating rather than he gave us a beating.

So there's little application there, is there? Not immediately. Not immediately. And you will notice that the reason for the suffering that they're going to face is, according to just three words there at the end of verse 9, for my sake. For my sake. And then down again in verse 13, you will be hated by all for my namesake.

For my namesake. It's not that these people are disruptive in the culture. They're standing out in the street with signs and whatnot. Not necessarily, no, no. No, it was just that the Jews hated them because of what they said concerning the messiahship of Jesus, and the Gentiles hated them as well—these strange people who were cannibalistic, so they thought, why else would they be gathering in places and eating the body and blood of their messiah Jesus of Nazareth? Now, you don't have to read into the Acts of the Apostles for very long before you realize that what Jesus says here takes place. Peter and John are imprisoned, they're released, they're arrested, they're beaten.

Stephen is stoned. James is killed by King Herod. And so Jesus says, this is what is going to unfold for you. It's going to give you an opportunity to tell the truth about who I am and about what I have done. And interestingly, you will see that verse 10—just one little sentence—nestles in there between verse 9 and verse 11.

Which I recognize is where you would expect verse 10, but the point that I'm making is that the phrase over which there's a lot of ink spilt and a lot of coffee spilt as well and a lot of hot air used sits in between the bearing of witness for the name of Jesus and suffering before governors and so on, and then when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, in the prospect of that and in the middle of that, and the gospel must be first proclaimed to all the nations. So what do you think that's really about? I mean, in that context, what do you think he's saying there?

What is he telling me? He said, How did this start? This is quite a place, Jesus. Did you see these buildings? Jesus says, You see those buildings? They're going.

What did that mean? It meant this—that no longer were people going to encounter God in a dark room of an ancient building in the Middle East, because he was no longer inhabiting that temple. His followers are now the dwelling place of God. Those followers are going out into all the ends of the earth with this good news. They're gonna get a hammering for this in Jerusalem and in Judea and when they go to the ends of the earth. And as soon as they go out there with that news, it will become apparent that this message that has been conveyed through the Jewish people has come to an end, and that this message now is for all the nations—for the Jews and for the Gentiles, for those from Macedonia, from those from Greece, and so on. And in the post-Pentecost experience, you have this very thing taking place. The gospel is being proclaimed to all the nations. Isn't that what they say on the day of Pentecost? We can hear the gospel being proclaimed in our own tongue. Now, does that exhaust the notion of the gospel being proclaimed to all the nations?

No. There is every indication that the expansive dimension of that speaks to the fact that God's patience is such that he is allowing his voice to go out to the ends of the earth so that all the nations of the world will have the opportunity to hear the gospel. But think about what all nations meant in the minds of Peter, James, and Andrew, and John. Do you think they thought about United States? They couldn't. Didn't exist. Great Britain? No.

These nations did not exist. So when he says the gospel's gonna go out to all the nations, he's speaking to a group of fellows who said to him, tell us when this'll happen and what will the signs be. He says, this is what's gonna happen.

They'll haul you in, they'll give you a doing. Remember that the gospel has to go out to all the nations, and when they do, make sure that you are on your guard. In fact, he says, look in verse 12, brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father is child, and the children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. In other words, the familial relationships that tie men and women to one another will eventually be broken down under the impact of the gospel. What this means for us today is different from what it means to our brothers and sisters in the Sudan and in Afghanistan and in Pakistan and in many other places.

But why would this strike us, when Jesus has already said, If anyone wants to become my follower, he should take up his cross and follow me. But let me first go and bury my father. Let the dead bury the dead. But I've got a business, I've got a field. Forget your field. Yeah, but I've got family ties.

Forget your family. What? You see, unless those umbilical cords are severed in the core of a person, however would we ever be able, then, to face the challenge that is represented here? But, he says, I want you to know that the one who endures to the end will be saved. It's what you have in the book of Revelation. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

You see the cohesion of the chapter, then? Tell us, what will these things be and what will happen? He says, Don't be led astray, because if you're led astray, you won't continue to the end. And if you don't continue to the end, you won't be saved.

Don't allow these things to alarm you and unsettle you and knock you off your horse, because if you get knocked off your horse, you won't continue to the end. And if you don't continue to the end, you won't be saved. And be on your guard, because you're gonna be brought under the persecuting gaze of those who hate you for my name's sake, and if you allow that to disestablish you, then you won't continue to the end. And if you don't continue to the end, you won't be saved. It is the one who endures to the end will be saved. Well, you say, but I know, but, I mean, you just endure to the end. If you're saved, you endure to the end. How do you endure to the end if you're saved? By enduring to the end.

By keeping yourself in the love of God. It's the very same thing you have in the same few verses of Jude. Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, so on.

God does this. He's the one who keeps you from falling. In the same few verses, he says, Keep yourself in the love of God. So the one who is kept keeps.

And if he's not kept, he doesn't keep. And the ground of our salvation is in what Christ has accomplished. By his first advent, he has come and dealt with everything that was necessary in our lives.

The triumphant victory of his first advent will be brought out in all of its fullness in his second advent. So, he says, make sure that you endure to the end. Don't throw the towel in.

Don't lie down in the grass. Don't allow all the unsettling factors of the universe to knock you off your stride. Keep going.

Keep going. Clearly, this admonition from Jesus applies to us today, and perhaps no more so than right now as we feel the birth pangs of his second coming. You're listening to Truth for Life and a message from Alistair Begg called Signs of the End. And rather than allowing the current cultural tensions to somehow knock us off our stride, as Alistair said, how much better for us to invest our energy in walking faithfully with Jesus as a devoted disciple in any circumstance. At Truth for Life, we've been impressed by a classic book written by the late British theologian John Stott. The book is called The Disciple. The book is filled with biblical wisdom, especially for Christians who are struggling to know how to interact with the present-day world. John Stott explores four key parts of discipleship. How we hear from God, how we keep from allowing our emotions to overtake us, how to think wisely and rightly about our vocation, and how to love one another more effectively. We'd be happy to send you a copy of The Disciple. It's yours when you give to support the ministry of Truth for Life. To give and to request a copy of The Disciple, you can click on the book image in the mobile app or go online to truthforlife.org.

You can also call 888-588-7884. Jesus told his disciples that a day of tribulation was coming. It would be unlike anything they'd ever witnessed before. But what did he mean by that? I'm Bob Lapeen. Hope you can join us again tomorrow as Alistair presents a message called Be on Guard. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.