Best Is Coming

Transcript

Gospel according to Mark, chapter 13. The Gospel of Mark, chapter 13.

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And when you have found that, go ahead and stand with me for our gospel reading.

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Mark, chapter 13. Notice these words this morning from Jesus. This is the word of God. As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, look, teacher, what large stones and what large buildings. Then Jesus asked him, do you see these buildings?

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Not one stone will be left here. Upon another, all will be thrown down. Now, when he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, and John and Andrew asked him privately, tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished? Then Jesus began to say to them, beware that no one leads you astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.

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This must take place. But the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There'll be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines.

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This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. Jesus, thank you for your holy word. We pray now that you would guide our minds and hearts to you through these words that are offered. We pray in your name. Amen.

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You can be seated.

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Well, as we've kind of said already, we are coming to the end of our liturgical year, which is going to be next Sunday. And right before the end, we start kind of seeing some of the teachings of Jesus begin to pick up and look toward the end. Again, when we say the end, we mean capital T, capital E, the end of the story. All right? And so, in some sense, as we get near to the end, we're supposed to look forward to the end.

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So it's kind of a bit of a paradox there. And it's interesting, too, that as we are approaching the season of Advent, which we're not there yet, but we're almost there, we're also to remember the second Advent of Christ. And in fact, the first two Sundays of Advent, by the way, just as a teaser, are also about the second Advent. So they're kind of put together that Jesus is coming and has come and will come again. And we're to see this.

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And one more note here. If next Sunday we're focused on Christ the King, which we are next Sunday, it's all about that, all about him being the King of kings. This Sunday is about Christ the priest, Christ the mediator, and you'll see some of that coming about. So, you know, there's kind of been, in my estimation, and this is just a broad, you know, observation of the end times, okay? Because as soon as you say end times, everybody begins to have their ideas and things blowing up and trumpets, you know, blowing off and angels and all kinds of apocalyptic language and images bursting and that's correct.

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You're supposed to think of that. And we get that Here in Chapter 13, in fact, of Mark, actually. But when you really kind of begin to look at it, there's been sort of two main thoughts that have run concerning the end of time. And the first is kind of this, again, a gross generalization, but nevertheless, it's this, the world's going to pass away, and so let it go. Let it go, right?

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Like, in other words, it's going to hell in a handbasket. So let it go. The world's going. And so we need to just circle our wagons, not be part of the world and resist. You know, this has been sort of a more fundamentalist approach, if you will, within Christianity, of circling the wagons and let's not become part of the world at all.

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You know, they're all going to hell and everything's going to burn up. So why even invest here, right? Why even try, you know, kind of becomes. It is a very sort of negative approach, okay? And again, a gross generalization.

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Okay? Not all fundamentalists and all that. Okay, I get it. Totally. Okay.

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But generally speaking, this is one of the options that we have, is to think of the world in this way, right? Not of the world. And so therefore, let's do away with it. Just kind of kind of group together and watch it pass away and make sure we're preserved in this, okay? The second way, however, is.

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And oftentimes when teachers, by the way, give a few different ways, their way is almost always the last one, okay? Just an indication that's the way they normally land it. But so you'll see it here is the world will give away to another one and be reborn. That's slightly different, isn't it? One's passing away, it's over.

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Like, don't even worry about it. This other one, however, is the idea that he's going to renew this world like the one we're in now. We might call it reality or existence, like our understanding of what is. He's going to. He's going to be reborn into a new heaven and a new earth.

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Right now, with this mentality, we're to work hard to see the kingdom of God continue to expand until it takes up the whole world and there's nothing left but the kingdom of God. You see, the difference here is One is on the offensive, the other defensive. And I find this in general, Right. I mean, just in talking to people about the end times, like in general, that's the kind of thing is one's defense, you know, the other's offense. Now, Jesus gives us somewhat of an indication.

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At one point he said, the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. Powerful verse, right? But this is a verse that indicates, not defense, not as if gates don't move forward. Gates keep people in. Think about it like cows, right?

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So the purpose of a gate, you should close the gate, you keep them in, okay? The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. In other words, we are to be leading a charge against the very gates of Hell to rescue those who are perishing, to rescue those who are on their way to hell or locked in hell on earth. Right now, you see, it's both. It's not one or the other is hell now or to come.

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Yes, yes, it's both. You can be experiencing hell on earth right now in your life. Like hell can have you in its grips, you say, Pastor, surely in our modern time, you're not gonna indicate that there's this place of eternal destruction or eternal fire and judgment, eternal notice. Surely not. Surely it's some sort of annihilationism where you just have to endure for a minute and then you just cease to exist.

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Yes, I'm introducing an eternal hell because this is exactly Jesus words. And are we wiser than he?

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No, we're not. He is the son of the living God, and he's the one who introduces hell in this way. He's the one who says it's the eternal flame. He didn't have to say that part. He could have just said it's a flame, right?

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Like an incinerary, so that you would burn up. Like, shoot the word left me. What's it called when you burn up a body? Cremation. Like in cremation, you just burn?

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No, no, no, no, no. Eternal flame. Eternal Jesus gives us the right indication that there is heaven, which means with him, home for us, it's being home with Christ. That's what heaven is, where Christ is. We're at home in that.

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Hell is. We're not at home with what Christ loves.

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And thus it is the opposite of life, the opposite of beatitude, the opposite of blessing, the opposite of happiness. In fact, it's never ending want and never coming to happiness itself. Because guess who is Beatitude himself? Jesus. He is happiness with a face on.

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He is God who All of our desires are directed toward. In other words, in all the little things that we enjoy. I was thinking about this even last night when I was kind of putting some of these thoughts together. You know, if you have a good meal with friends, right? Like, you're like, man, that was a good time.

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Like, you leave, you know, sometimes. It's not always like that, but, like, you get in a car. You know how it is. You get in a car and you're like, that was really good. Like, I was surprised at how good that was, you know, well, look, that little good of just dinner with a friend or dinner with friends or time with family.

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Yesterday, I watched as. As, you know, one of my sons, Baylor. I mean, you all know him, so might as well not even try to be enigmatic about it. But he got a new car, you know, and so, like. And I watched this happiness, and then he was sharing with his brothers, and it was like, I just thought, that's really good.

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Like, I like that. That is really awesome, you know? And those goods are little tidbits of the good one. You see, it all comes from him. When you trace the cord back to the source, it's God who is the source of what is good and what makes us happy.

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And we try all the other things, but they never will bring about happiness in our life. Because to be happy, one must be holy. There's no separation there. There's no separation. That is what it means to be happy, is that holiness becomes a second nature to us because of the Holy Spirit's work in our life.

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Why do we think he's called the Holy Spirit? He's the Spirit that comes in us, that changes us into being. Like the Holy One who walked among us and who made a way to holiness through repentance and receiving of the Holy Spirit of God. So we are on the offense, dear friends. We're not on the defense.

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Posted up with head in a hole, okay? We're engaging the culture and our friends, government, and every other sort of reality and entity in our world for the sake of Christ. And Jesus gives us this exact indication and I think wants us to reorient ourselves, not to think, oh, yeah, the world's passing away, so why do we even care? No, no, no, no. To care about our neighbors even more, to care about passing the gospel on to our children like this.

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This really rocked my world. And this guy has a preterist understanding of the end of time, which is to say everything in Revelation is fulfilled before the end of the first century. That's A whole nother discussion. We're not getting into it, even though I really would love to. Okay, let's get into it privately.

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All right, Some of you have wooed me in. In that regular. So. And here's the point. He, Jesus, he gives us an indication, all right, of coming again, but it starts now.

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So now is the time where his kingdom has come, and it will come. And here's where we have to understand that he's using the words here from Daniel. And it's about one kingdom that has come, one kingdom alone that stands the test of time. And we don't have this negative view, but rather, think about this. Here's what this guy said.

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He goes, think about this. The kingdom has already begun. Like, it's already happened. The end has already come. In this understanding, the end has already come.

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And if the end has already come, then that means we're in it now. Like, we're right now to be doing what he said. It's not like we're just waiting around. I don't know when they. No, no, the end has come because he has come and appeared among us.

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And guess who he is. Jesus. The beginning and what the end. And here's what he said. He goes, so if that means, then that rather than, you know, oh, yeah, the world's gonna pass away, therefore, we don't have much time.

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What if Jesus is not coming back for another 10,000 years? Now, that just sat with me differently because I've always kind of thought, oh, it's soon. Cause, you know, it says it's soon, so it's soon. Therefore, you know, never know, like, maybe today. And so, you know, why even start something big?

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Because, I mean, you know, like, could be any day. But what if it were 10,000 years from right now? What does that mean for your children's children? And as you get older, you begin to start thinking about your children's children. It means that I've got to ground the faith in these guys right now and pass on the faith.

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Like, that is one of our preeminent things that we are supposed to be about. What if he's not coming back? What does that mean for our church? Think about it. Not just, oh, yeah, we're just going to get by, and, you know, because any day now, but rather, what if we're waiting for 10,000 years?

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What does that mean for Madison City to receive the gospel and we plant a church that continues to preach good news? It kind of ought to for me. Maybe not for you, but for me. It struck something in Me, it struck something in me for. For the people I pastor, for the people I teach, for the people in my home, for my neighbors and so on.

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Yes, there's one kingdom to rule them all. And that kingdom. That kingdom has already appeared. In fact, in Mark 13, Jesus is actually quoting from Daniel. Not the piece that we read, but deeper into Daniel, the more apocalyptic part of Daniel.

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And by the way, you remember what apocalyptic or apocalypse means. It's just the unveiling of. Okay, so when you say the apocalypse, literally, Revelation, the book of Revelation, begins the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? The unveiling of Jesus Christ.

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So when we talk about apocalyptic literature, that's a certain genre, Just like rap or country music. As soon as you start hearing a dirt road, you don't think rap. Right. As soon as you hear Glock 9, you don't think country. Okay, so you get my point.

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There's different genres, right? Same thing here in the Bible. As soon as we see stuff like this, where the sun, moon and stars are darkening and they're no more. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're deep into apocalyptic material now, okay?

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When the nations are all collapsing in wars and angels all. I mean, you remember from Daniel, our reading in Daniel 3, how does it begin? Do you remember Michael the archangel is fighting for us against Satan? Yeah. You now entered into.

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This isn't just narrative. It's not law, it's not poetry. We're talking apocalyptic, the unveiling of the end. Okay? That's what we mean when we talk about apocalyptic.

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And so the unveiling. Notice this, brothers and sisters. The unveiling has already happened. The one kingdom to rule them all is already on Earth. In fact, you're part of it.

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You're part of that kingdom that has already sprouted. The branches already poked through, and we are overcoming, even though it doesn't always look that way, that kingdom is already established and will grow and grow and grow until the whole world, whole cosmos is only God ruled. And what a day that'll be. What a day that'll be when the sun finally appears.

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Well, our text here gives us this sort of indication. As we've already said, Jesus comes out of the temple and his disciples immediately say, man, look at these big stones. Now, to really. To really grasp this, have you ever. Maybe you've been to Washington, D.C.

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you know anybody who's all been to Washington, D.C. just real? Yeah, yeah. So a lot of us. Okay, now, when you go there, there's some really cool buildings.

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I mean, let's just Be. It's pretty neat. In fact, what I noticed about Washington, D.C. is this. That's a very dark place spiritually, let's be real about that.

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But cool built. And you're looking up all the time, like, man, you go to Supreme Court, it's like, wow. You know, every room is just. You're looking up and then. And then they've got the Library of Congress.

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Holy smokes. Like, you go up in there, it's like the Sistine Chapel. I mean, I just. This is the way I walked around. I didn't even notice anybody else down here, you know?

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It's beautiful. The whole ceiling's just covered in art and beauty books that go all the way up to. I mean, unbelievable, right? We're just all looking up. Okay, now that would have been very similar.

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Maybe. Maybe. Because, you know, you can drive all around Huntsville and not see one building like the Supreme Court here, right? So it's kind of shocking when you do see a beautiful building, like. Or maybe a beautiful cathedral, like the National Cathedral.

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Unbelievable. Went in there and just, you know, it's beautiful. Amazing. Okay, so same thing here. They would have gone to the temple, and every time been like, wow, what an amazing feat of humanity to be able to develop something like this.

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And I'm sure the temple, too, you had to look up, right? And you're looking up at these massive stones, thinking to yourself, same thing at the Acropolis. When you're up there in Greece, they show you, like, see that place way over there? Barely I can see it. They said they brought these stones right here by hand.

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All the way from there, you're thinking how no trucks, no cranes, that's impossible. But here it is. We did it. We did it. And so, man, wow.

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You know, take your picture, right? And Jesus says, yeah, yeah, take it all in, guys. All of this will be rubble not long from now. Talk about throwing a wet blanket on a fire, you know, talk about being negative all of a sudden, you know, I mean, if I was there, I'd been, what's with you, man? You know, like, you're in D.C.

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and you're like, yeah, just a bunch of garbage here, you know? No, no, I want to take it all in, right? What is Jesus point here? Be negative, Nancy. Of course not.

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Of course not. Okay. Of course not. He's the one. It was his idea to put the temple in Jerusalem, wasn't it?

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He's the one who wanted to have a central location for people to come and worship together. He likes that. Okay. God likes that. But they had made it an idol.

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And in fact, the people who had built this temple were Herod's family. You remember, they're the ones who actually did this thing. Dolled it up to be a wonder of the world at the time, okay? And Jesus says, look, every stone will be down. It'll be three.

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And in another. And then, remember, in one of the other gospels, he also says this. Tear the temple down, build it up in three days. Now he's talking about his body, a much more precious temple than anybody. By hand, because his body is not made by hand.

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He says, everyone. And of course, we know that actually happened in 70 A.D. the Romans came in and wiped the temple clean, razed it to the ground, literally took away everything. And to this day, it has not been rebuilt where it was in any form. There's been no sacrifices from that day to now.

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Okay? Right now, Muslims are in charge of the temple that is there in Jerusalem. Okay? So Jews aren't even allowed to go up. And they don't go anywhere near where the temple used to be.

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They would not dare. They don't want to step on where the Holy of holies was. Okay? They don't know exactly where it is, but somewhere right there. And so why no sacrifice?

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What? Did you hear the. Did you hear the reading from Hebrews today? Right? Why has no sacrifice been made in Jerusalem?

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Because once the ultimate sacrifice was made in Jerusalem, which was Christ's own body, the Lamb of God. There is no reason in the world to offer an animal in place of sin when you have that precious of a life that was given for our sake. You see, the kingdom that rules them all is already ruling. Already ruling. And we come under that rulership when we put our faith in Jesus Christ and begin to live in that kingdom, live in his church, his ekklesia, the called out ones.

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And so our text today gives us three clear warnings. And actually it extends beyond our text, but the text actually forms a chiasm. Okay? So literarily you have a chiasm where you have A, then to B, then to C, which is the center, and then back to B1 and then A1. Okay?

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So it moves if you're actually mapping it out. So the end matches the beginning, and then there's a center point that has no match. Okay, so let me just. It's not a. Not a crazy thing to understand, but notice the first thing.

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So in verse five and verse 22, okay, first part of the chiasm, by the way, you find a lot of chiasms where in The Psalms, right? The book of Psalms has a lot of chiasm. It's one of his favorite literary devices. So you have false Christ Jesus immediately, does he not? He immediately begins.

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They say, listen, tell us when this is going to happen. Tell us what the signs are, you know, because we always want to know. We want the timeline, right? Like, let me put it in my calendar. Jesus, you know, Does Jesus ever give us a calendar?

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Ever give us a timeline? No. In fact, he says, I don't even know. Only the Father knows. Kind of interesting, right?

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Here's what he says. Many will come in my name and say, I am He. That's actually Yahweh, by the way. When you look at this in the Greek, that's exactly what ego A me, I, I, myself, I am He. It's an ontological statement.

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And they will lead many astray. So the first warning for us, in other words, okay, kingdom's here, but it's still yet to come. We've already celebrated the first advent of Christ's coming. Now we're looking for the second. Okay, so what do we do?

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What do we do? Jesus, we're the disciples right here. And he says, first of all, guys, many will come in my name and say, I am He. But they are not. They are not.

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They will lead you astray. What does he mean? What does he mean? There will be many messiahs that come along, many people that will promise so much kingdoms, perhaps nations, presidents and kings who will come along and promise the world, promise salvation. But they're not me.

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They're not me.

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He warns us that we are not to make an idol of Jesus. Because, you know, we can also, in our own head, kind of make up what Jesus like and Jesus not like that. For instance, Jesus is so loving, he would never send anyone to hell. In fact, he wouldn't even create a place like hell. And by the way, the scripture does give us an indication of where hell comes from.

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Did you know that it actually tells us specifically that hell was created by God for the demonic, for Satan and the demons. It was never made for man. But if we go the way of Satan, if our Father is Satan, you say whose father would be Satan? Anyone who obeys Father Satan, according to Jesus. I know.

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That's strong with the glory. I know. Oh, yeah. None of us. None of us.

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Let's be careful. Let's be careful. Lord, help me. That's what we need. To pray.

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Help me to repent where Satan has his claws in me. Where my thinking is not of God, but of Another. Another spirit. And Lord, would you send your spirit to renew my mind, to transform me, to sanctify me so that I love what you love? Because again, what did we say heaven is?

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It's home with Jesus. If you don't like what Jesus likes, if you disagree with Jesus here in the scriptures, even on human sexuality, those matters. Listen, you're gonna hate heaven. You actually hate God. I know you might not feel it in your psyche, in your mind, but it's through our decisions that we really reveal to ourself even what is in us.

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Because what does the scripture say about the human heart? He says, marshall can't know it, but when I see something come out and I say, lord, help. And we've all had that happen. Where'd that come from? Lord, help.

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We need his mercy. We need his grace. We need his transformation. We need the Holy Spirit, the Holy fing. Spirit of God in our life.

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If we don't see that need all the more we do.

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So we need the real Jesus, don't we? Now the second thing is this chiastic form, false Jesus. The second one, wars and Tribulation. And we hear this. I mean, any apocalyptic stuff, you only get, by the way, one book in the Old Testament that's apocalyptic.

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You remember it's Daniel, right? It's Daniel. It's the one. It's the book like Revelation for the New Testament. So in the New Testament we get one book dedicated to it.

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Revelation. Jesus has some interspersings there of apocalyptic material. So do the prophets, by the way. But Daniel specifically is apocalyptic in this way. And so you're gonna hear about wars and trials and tribulations.

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In other words. In other words, it always gets darker before the light comes. It's always darkest in the night before that first light comes. In other words, as you found in your life, it probably is going to get worse before it gets better. But then it'll be better.

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And the better is way more than the worst. It really is. Any of you who have come through a tough time like that and God is delivered. God was faithful. He was good through it all.

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You didn't even feel. I didn't even feel him in those moments. But now that I look back, he was right there. He was. He was.

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It was my problem. I couldn't see. We're the ones who are blind. We're the ones that can't hear, not him. He's there.

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He's with us. He is Emmanuel. God with us. For us too, by the way, did you know that? He is for You.

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He's not against you. Many theologians ever even proposed, like, God doesn't send people to hell. We get locked in hell and don't want to come out. Hell is locked from the inside, not the outside. He's already opened the door.

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And we sit in our prisons, we sit in our addictions, we sit in our unbelief, and God gives us what we want. Troubles and trials will come, and we are told to watch, to wait, to endure these trials, to endure them now. Dialing in false Christ, wars and tribulations. The third one is this. The third one is this.

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You'll be delivered up to councils. Sounds political, which it is. He literally. I mean, this is what he says here. You're going to be delivered up to councils.

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And also, interestingly, when you get to the other part of the chiasm, it intensifies. Not just councils. Cause one thing to go before, like, I don't know, a body of government here, locally, you know, maybe here in Madison, let's say, right, Go before them. Like, hey, you know, let's get some more clarity on this. Okay, cool, let's do that.

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Let's be real professional about it. When Jesus hits this again in verse 12, it's not councils anymore. It's family. That's a tougher one, isn't it? It's one thing to stand before colleagues and, you know, co workers, whatever, and feel that peer pressure.

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It's another when it's your spouse, when it's your brother, when it's your mother. This is literally what Jesus words are right here in the text, and they will deliver you up. What about then? Will you lose faith then? It's a tough one, isn't it?

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It's a tough one. And Jesus point is very, very clear here. And it's a hard one. Don't let even family drag you to hell.

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That's a sad one.

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And then in the middle of the chiasm, you say, well, Pastor, what's the middle of the chiasm? Look at verse, verse 10 here. What does it say? And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. So surrounding that statement are these three warnings about the end of time.

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But at the center is this. We, all of us, are called to preach the gospel in the way we live, in the way we talk, in our actions, in our discipleship. We are to expand the kingdom by preaching the good news that Jesus has come. He's lived a perfect life, sinless. Then he died and rose again.

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That is the gospel. He came, he lived, he died, he rose.

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All right, then. Then in verses 24 through 27, and it's famous because you know this verse, it says, but in those days after that tribulation. So after this little chiasm that he has here, the sun will be darkened and the moon will give its light, and the stars will be fading from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. What's Jesus saying about the end of time? Well, he's saying it's the end of time.

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That's what he's saying. When the sun goes down and the moon goes down and the stars go down. Well, for the ancient people, but also for us, how do we calculate time? What is time? And Aristotle put it simply, but profoundly, he said, time is the measure of motion.

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He said a different, longer version, but that's a simple version. Time is the measure of motion. What does he mean by that? He means that if you and I are talking like we've been doing right now, and you haven't looked at your watch, okay, You've actually just been engaged in the conversation. We've all, you know, I'm sure every time I preach, you're just like that, right?

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Like, man, how much time has flown by? Good night. I didn't even know. No, you're like, when's this guy gonna finish? No, you know, don't look at the clock.

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Okay, but if you haven't looked at the clock, we're engaged in conversation. Have you ever noticed, like, how much time has even gone by? I don't know, man. Well, how do we measure that, then? How do we measure how much time has expired?

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We have to measure it by something else that's in motion. That's his point. What is that? Well, interestingly, it's the heavenly bodies. That's how you do it.

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And so ultimately, it comes down to the sun. Then you say, well, Pastor, listen, hate to break it to you, but the sun is not in motion. Really? Because actually, we know the universe is expanding according to Einstein and others. And in fact, even the sun has a type of motion.

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Okay, now, if the sun goes away, remember. Listen, the Gregory encounter, we can get all into that. It's a Christian calendar, it's the biggest, best, etc. Point is based on the sun, not on the moon. When the sun goes down, there's no way to calculate time anymore.

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You wouldn't know. Then it's the end of time. And anyway, time is this interesting thing. Is it past, present and future. Bear with me just a second.

00:34:43

It's fascinating. Past, present, future, Right? We say oh yeah, everybody knows that, of course. Ho hum. What is past?

00:34:51

It's what is no longer. In other words, it doesn't exist anymore. Right? What is future? It's what is yet to come which doesn't exist either.

00:35:07

All we have left then to try to define is present, which is indefinable really, because what is present, now, now, now, now, now, it can't be captured. It actually can't be captured. So you really have time, which means then and Aristotel again. It's basically dividing up what is no longer to what is not yet, which is nothing, right? I mean, you're sitting there now he gets, you know, here's the point.

00:35:36

It is something, it's existence, it's what our reality is. It's the moment we have right now. And of course the past comes back and moves us. And even what is future moves us, doesn't it? It moves us in certain ways.

00:35:52

It truly does. Like you may just be walking through your day and all of a sudden something from your past just bears down on you. We've all had that happen and we've had the idea that, oh, something's coming up, therefore we need to clean, right? Which I was doing in here yesterday, wheeling out stuff and you know, Gail and Sandy have been doing. We've just busy bees working.

00:36:13

Why? To prepare for friendsgiving. That's why. Because guess what? We got company coming.

00:36:18

And when company's coming, the future, the non existent, bears down. Okay, here's the point. There will be no more time. We will be in an eternal now, unable to measure. Because guess what?

00:36:31

The sun, moon and stars are down. There's no way to measure anything like that. Guess who the measure is? Jesus. Exactly.

00:36:40

Jesus Christ. Here's the way I like to put it. The sun s u n gives way to the s o n the Son. Jesus talking about the Son giving way to the Son. Because in the new heaven and new earth, guess who the center of everything that we measure from everything is?

00:37:00

Jesus. Because really he already is. That's why we say he holds time in his hand. Right? Yeah, exactly.

00:37:09

Exactly. Mm. Well, that's good. Okay, so son gives way to now. Here's where we come down.

00:37:14

Land in a plane here. All right, don't look at your watch. Right.

00:37:22

Here's what Jesus says. The one who endures to the end will be saved. The opposite. The opposite of that is true too. Right.

00:37:32

The one who doesn't won't.

00:37:36

We're to be preaching the gospel to all nations, all peoples, because the end, the end is already in motion. It's already started. We're already in it. The game is already being played. And we're the players.

00:37:59

We're the ones called. We're the ones on the field. Your ticket's being pulled. You're being called to go in. And we're on the offense, rescuing those who are perishing.

00:38:13

We're the generation spoken of here as the next generation. Therefore, the scripture and Jesus here specifically in verse 37, ask us, well, let me just read it to you. It's powerful. Back up to 35. Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house will come in the evening or at midnight or at cock crow, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.

00:38:46

And what I say to you, I say to all, Watch.

00:38:55

Watch.

00:38:59

The danger is to fall asleep at the will of our life, end up in the ditch, the ditches of sin, the ditches of despair and of depression. No, today, look up, look up. The best is yet to come, brothers and sisters, no matter your point in time, look up. The best is yet to come. Because the best is Jesus Christ.

00:39:30

And we are told to watch and pray.

00:39:38

You say, pastor, what would we look like in heaven? I don't know. No clue. Okay, no clue. But the great divorce C.S.

00:39:47

lewis gives us a little indication, I think, of how we'll see people. And it won't be just this moment now, you know? Cause, like, you may see me on the road and think, what a jerk, you know, I hope not, but I try to drive properly, really. But you might. Might catch me on a bad day.

00:40:05

And that's just one piece of who I really like. Some of you know me pretty well, and I think you'll be like, oh, listen, listen, listen, listen. That's not all there is to him. Right? And we ought to give each other a break, really, on some of these moments.

00:40:19

In fact, Jesus says it this way. You must forgive others because you've been forgiven and not let the past dominate. Right now, thanks be to God, that's available to us. But here's what C.S. lewis said.

00:40:37

When you see people there, you actually see the whole person. So you see Bob when he was a little boy, you know, can you imagine that seeing boy all the way up to now? The whole thing, you see all of it together somehow. Wouldn't that be interesting? What does the trajectory of your life look like then, if that's the case?

00:40:58

Has it been about you? I know there's been moments, but let's leave those behind. Let's you know. Because when you got something new coming, like friendsgiving, the old's gotta go and the new's gotta come, right? Let's get rid of the old.

00:41:12

Let's leave it in the past. And let's look forward to what is good. The good one, Jesus Christ. Because the best is yet to come. In the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, come, Lord Jesus.

00:41:27

Amen.

Total Duration 00:41:31