Watch Out! (Part 3)

Scripture Reading

Will you please open your Bibles with me to the book of Mark, chapter 13. Mark, chapter 13. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, again, you'll be able to find that on page 897. Mark, chapter 13. And this is the Olivet Discourse, what this is normally known as, and we'll read this morning verses 1 through 23. The sermon will specifically look at verses 14 through 22. Hear now God's word.

Then as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here? And Jesus answered and said to him, Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down. Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled? And Jesus, answering them, began to say, Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am he, and will deceive many.

But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled. For such things must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles, but these are the beginnings of sorrows. But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for my sake. for a testimony to them.

And the gospel must be preached to all nations. But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand or premeditate what you will speak, but whatever is given you in that hour, speak that. For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. Now brother will betray brother to death, and father his child. And children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all, for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. But when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, Let the reader understand.

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down into the house, nor enter to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days, And pray that your flight may not be in winter, for in those days there will be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the creation, which God created until this time, nor ever shall be. And unless the Lord has shortened those days, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's sake whom He chose, He shortened those days. Then if anyone says to you, look, here is the Christ, or look, He is there. Do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will rise and show signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. But take heed.

Prayer for Illumination

See, I have told you all things beforehand. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word, and we thank you that you, in your infinite wisdom, spoke these words. You gave them to the disciples. They spoke them and wrote them down, and remembering them with perfect precision. And Lord, now we need your Holy Spirit to help us to understand it.

Sermon

We need you to help us apply it in our lives. So Father, please do that work in Jesus' name. Amen. I racked my brain for a while to give you a good introduction. Here's the thing, I don't have one. We just got a lot to do. Alright, we just got work to do and we got a lot of history lesson to go. And so, I gave you a long outline. We're going to work through some things together. But it's very important what Jesus says here. So this continues on in the watch out that happened in verse 9. In verse 9, Jesus gave us, but watch out for yourselves. And what comes in verses 14 through 22 is this next section of watching out. Now we've already seen as a recap that we need to be warned against running to either extreme, that everything in the Olivet Discourse is all in the past, or the other pendulum swing extreme, that everything in here is in the future. I don't think either of those do justice to the passage.

But we also need to be warned not to get sucked into thinking that everything is at the end of the world. Right? Every time you turn on the television lately, there's something about a war with Israel and Hamas, and is this the end of the world? No, there's going to be wars, there's going to be rumors of wars, there's going to be earthquakes, there's going to be famines. That's not the end of the world. Jesus is clear about this here. Also, as a recap, we need to be careful of getting fooled by false messiahs or predictions of the end. There are going to be people who will rise up and say, I am He. Pay no attention to them. Change the channel. Walk away. You'll be better off.

Also, as a recap, Jesus warned us about coming persecutions even by our closest family members, and we looked at that last week. You're also encouraged to stay courageous in sharing the gospel. And the last bit of recap is, in these last days, don't be surprised that people hate you. There's a quote I meant to read last week and I didn't, but I think it's helpful for this. And not being surprised in these last days that people hate you. One commentator said, not all the world hates Christianity, but, It does hate good Christianity, and it always will. Don't be surprised by that.

So when we come to our passage this week, and we look at verses 14 and following, we are just hit, smack dab in the face with a hard problem. And here's the hard problem. What's going on here? Verse 14, so when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, let the reader understand, What in the world is going on here?

I mean, the disciples had it in their mind that the temple could never fall, right? That was the prevailing Jewish belief of the time. The temple would never fail. It was so grand, it was so central to the worship of God that it could never fall. And so, when Jesus tells them, you see these buildings? I'm telling you, not a single stone is going to be left.

In their minds, it means, and if temple equals into the world right away, But they would have gasped at this. When Jesus says, when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not, this would have struck absolute fear in a Jewish person's heart. See, this is coming from Daniel chapter 11 and Daniel chapter 12, but Jewish people thought this already happened. See, the disciples would have heard this and they would have been, what do you mean, Jesus? 160s, the abomination of desolation happened in Jerusalem. And I need to take you to the history lesson a little bit here to understand why this would have put such terror in their hearts.

See, in 175 BC, there was a Greek Seleucid ruler named Antiochus Epiphanes. And Antiochus is a tyrant. Alexander the Great has died. There's a power vacuum. The kingdom splits into different kind of little ruling kingdoms, and one of them is the Seleucids, and Antiochus is one of those. And he names himself Epiphanes, which is like the manifestation of God. His detractors call him Epimenes. Antiochus, the one who's out of his mind. But he thinks that he's an incarnation of God. And he has this desire. Antiochus has this desire to have his kingdom unified.

Right? It stretches from Asia Minor down to the borders of Egypt. And at times he fights with the Ptolemies for control over Judea. And he has it in his mind, there's one way I'm going to actually unify my people, and that's Hellenizing, making all of them Greek. One culture, one God, one language, one religion. He's hell-bent on this idea of unifying his people by being totally Greek.

And so in 169, Antiochus has a problem. You know who's not on board with this Greek-izing of the world, this Hellenizing of the world? The Jews. They ain't going to put up with all this Greek mythology stuff and all that. No, no, we're people of the covenant, we're going to keep the covenant, we're going to keep doing this. And that really bothers Antiochus, because this is supposed to be the unifying element.

And so 169 BC, he attacks Jerusalem, And he loots the temple. And he becomes more and more tyrannical. In 167, he attacks Jerusalem again on a Sabbath. He kills most of the male inhabitants of Jerusalem. He bans all Jewish rites. He banned circumcision. And he commanded the Jews to sacrifice swine to other gods.

This is the tyranny of this Greek ruler, Antiochus. And then in December of 167 BC, Antiochus does something that horrified the Jewish people, and was blazed into their memory like a hot iron. Antiochus set up an altar in the temple, and there he sacrificed a pig to Zeus.

You can imagine how well this went over with the Jews. Went over like a lead balloon. The Maccabean, the Hasmoneite family, they rose up in rebellion against the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus and they drove him out. But it was so remembered by the Jewish people that if you go to their writings in 1st Maccabees, I want you to hear how the Jewish people remembered what happened. And I want you to listen to the phrases that they use. 1 Maccabees chapter 1 verse 54 through 59. I'm going to summarize some of those, but read a portion of it.

Now in the 15th day of the month of Chalcea, in the 140 and 50th year, they set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar. And built altars throughout Judea on every side, and burned incense at the doors of their houses and in the streets. They rent the books of the law and they burned them. If found with a book of the covenant, or if any were committed to the law, the king Antiochus commanded that they should put him to death. Antiochus put to death women who would take their children to be circumcised. And those children who were circumcised, Antiochus hung those infants. The king ordered his men to rifle their houses. And any of the Jews who would have done the circumcising were immediately pronounced under the curse of death.

The Jewish people thought, hold on. The abomination of desolation we thought happened in 167. This story had been passed down to us for centuries now. Our great-grandma told our grandma and she told her son. And they told us of the time that Antiochus came in and killed all the children. When he came in and destroyed the sanctity of the temple, and set up an altar, and made an altar of Zeus, and sacrificed a pig there.

And now Jesus, in verse 14 says, so when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, in their minds they're saying, what? There's no way that this can happen again. Are our children really going to be killed for following you? Is the city really going to be destroyed again? Are we going to have to go to war again? Is this going to happen again? We thought Daniel 11 and 12 were in the past, that was ancient history by now.

What we find here is that Jesus has the same idea that He's not denying that that happened in 167, but what He's saying is, boys, that was just a dress rehearsal of how bad things are about to get. Yes, the temple of the disciples' day was grand. It was more beautiful than Ezra's temple ever was. It was larger than Solomon's temple ever was. But a day would come in which something even worse than 167 with Antiochus' desolating the temple would happen.

And so we have to ask ourselves, what is he talking about? This is where I'm thankful for the word synoptic. Children, your mom and dad have probably taught you, or your teachers have taught you the word synonym, right? They're similar in what they mean. Well, if you go to the book of Matthew, and you go to the book of Mark, and you go to the book of Luke, they're called synoptic gospels. They have largely the same stories, and largely the same structure. And so if we turn over to the synoptic of this in Luke chapter 20, this is really important. What is Jesus talking about? Luke chapter 20. He gives us a really important clue here, beginning at verse 20. Nope, Luke 21.

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, Let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let those who are in the country enter her." Do you notice what Luke did there? He doesn't say, when you see the abomination of desolation, he clarifies it, having written after the destruction of Jerusalem, and he writes here, but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, I'm convinced that this is a clear reference to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. That when Jesus is saying in Mark chapter 13, when you see the abomination of desolation, that He's talking about what happens when the Romans siege Jerusalem.

The Romans surrounded the city just like Luke said they would. Surround the city. They siege the city, there's no food coming in, no food going out, no water coming in, no water coming out, everything is at a dead stop. The people are starving, they're drinking their own filth, they're eating their own infants. And there's this amazing thing that happens. As the siege of Jerusalem is happening, There's a brief moment, historians have no clue why, the Roman army backed off for a moment. Do you know what the Christians did? They remembered Jesus' words and they left. They fled to the mountains and they were saved. They went across the Jordan River and they found safety. And then guess what happened?

The army surrounded again. broke through the city walls, burned everything down to the ground, broke down every single stone of the temple either by themselves or by forced labor to try to get every ounce of gold that had melted between the cracks. And there, the man who would later become Emperor Titus stood where the altar was and he lifted up the Roman standard with its eagle. And he proclaimed victory over Jerusalem. Jerusalem had been desecrated.

The early church listened to Jesus and it saved them their lives. But I got to tell you, there were people in Jerusalem, even while the siege was happening around, even all the Roman armies were gathered around the city. There were people inside the city who claimed that they were the Messiah. They said to the people trying to rally them that, I am the Messiah, I am the anointed King, we're going to defeat them just like our Hasmonean forefathers. And they tried to deceive the elect. And those false messiahs were slaughtered by the Romans.

The devastation, destruction, and death at the Roman hands made Antiochus' defiling of the temple in 167 look like child's play. The Romans absolutely destroyed Jerusalem. And those Jews who didn't leave and somehow survived, you can go to the Arch of Titus today, and you can look at one of the frescoes on the wall, And in that picture on the inside of the Arch of Titus, you're able to see the Jewish people who are walking in this triumphal march of Titus as the Jews hold their heads low. And you see the Romans carrying the priest's trumpets and the lampstand and the table for the showbread to bring into the temple in Rome to Jupiter.

The day of the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet had come to them, and they had listened. And it had been hard. Those who fled to the mountains did so without going back into their houses. without going back into the city. They left whatever they had. They didn't care about their tunics. They didn't care about their clothing. The only thing that they could do was get out of the city in just enough time to go and be saved.

And it happened just as Jesus said it would. So does that mean it's all done? Or is this all just a giant history lesson? We just go, man, Jesus really knew his stuff. He knew exactly what was going to happen. Just like Antiochus' desolating the temple was a foreshadowing of what Titus would do in Jerusalem.

I gotta say, I'm not convinced that all of this is done yet. Because when we look at verse 18 and following, it seems to be that there's more yet to come. And pray that your flight may not be in winter, for in those days there will be tribulation. Such has not been since the beginning of creation, which God created until this time, nor shall ever be."

The Jewish people have a real hard time with this. Have a real hard time. Messianic Jewish people have a real hard time with this passage, because you see, they don't see it as just the temple, and I think rightly so, because When the Muslim invasion happened in the 700s, guess what happened? They were exiled from their homes. And then you can't look at this and say, oh, the worst ever happened.

No, if you go study what happened to the Jews during the Crusades, there were atrocities that happened then. And then just in the last century, we saw the whole scale murdering, the genocide of the Jewish people. Just go to Auschwitz. and see what the world is hell-bent on destroying the Jewish people is. And I think any right person in their mind as a Jewish person says, it's scary to say that since the beginning of the creation, which God created until this time, nor ever shall be.

I wish I could come to you and I could give you comfort and could say, guys, this is such a good, encouraging passage, but I need to warn you. I don't think we've seen the worst to come yet. Because it seems like every generation there's a new iteration of the depths of depravity of evil and how much people hate one another and would destroy. No, I think we live in the age of the Gentiles, but this passage is past, present and future. We know that many antichrists have come and many antichrists will come. We know that the man of lawlessness will stand.

And so as one commentator says, this passage has a prophetic two-event-in-one typology, where the near-term destruction of 70 AD is talked about, but it's only like the end. Jerusalem is like the end. But that final great day of judgment, the day of the Lord, that last great eschatological day has not come yet. So I need to warn you today, we're going to end this sermon with three different things that I think we need to take from this passage to watch out for. The first is to watch out. Do not be deceived. That Jesus has already returned. Or that the resurrection of the dead has already happened.

People try to teach that. People have tried to teach that. And people will try to teach that. And they are a bunch of liars. Trying to deceive the elect as if it was possible. But I want you to be smart enough to know that these people are going to come to you. Have come and will come. And not to follow them. They'll try to lull you into complacency and try to get you into their cults with a good smile and an airtight package of theology. Don't go there. Watch out for them. Secondly, watch out. Don't be fooled by false Christs and false messiahs.

The recent centuries have been filled with this. We don't have to go too far, but the recent centuries, since 1700 especially, have been filled with false Christs. Ann Lee of the Shakers in the 1700s says that she was the female incarnation of Jesus Christ. She was a liar.

In 1834, John Nicholas Thorne claimed to be the savior of the world and the incarnation of Christ. And he was a liar. Arnold Potter, who was a Mormon, said that the Spirit of Christ had entered into him and he was going to ascend up into heaven. He believed this so much so that he went and stood on the end of a cliff and was thought he would ascend into heaven if he jumped off the cliff. He's got a grave because he was a liar and self-deceived.

But he convinced people that he was. In 1844, There's a man who claimed to be the fulfillment of the promised one of both Hinduism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, and deceived a whole lot into thinking he was the Christ. There's a giant temple on the north side of Chicago. If you go up into the suburbs, right on Lake Michigan, the Baha'i Temple is right there, and it's dedicated to this man who said that he was this Christ. And he was a liar. He's dead.

Rastafarians believe that Haile Selassie I, the emperor of Ethiopia in the 1800s was the second coming of Christ. And that's not true. Just until recently, people believed in Korea that Sung Myung Moon of the Unionist Church was the Messiah and the second coming of Christ. They even thought that he was like the first Adam, and his wife was like the first Eve.

Guess what happened about ten years ago? He died. Because he was a liar and self-deceived, and tried to deceive even the Laelect. Jim Jones convinced his followers he was the reincarnation of Jesus. He convinced his people that the millennium would come, and so if they just went to Guyana, they would have this ceremony, and the millennium would come upon them. And they drank the juice and amassed suicide. And then he killed himself.

Because many antichrists, many pseudo-Christs, Many pseudo-prophets will come and try to convince you, and I need you to know and be aware that these types of liars are going to come. Pseudo is where we get our word for liar, and so I don't normally come up here with strong words like liar, but these people are liars. Self-deceived charlatans.

Still even alive today, Alan Miller, down in Australia, part of this weird sect of Jehovah's Witnesses, That he claims to be Christ reincarnate even today. And his partner Mary, Mary Luck, says that she's Mary Magdalene reincarnate. People believe this stuff today. Children, people will try to convince you of this today. This is not just the stuff of history books.

And as I've talked to people who have been involved with cults, they'll say, I don't even know how I got this knee deep into it. They came across, and it seems this is what cults will do, they'll try to make a bridge with you with biblical Christianity. And then somewhere along the bridge, what you find out is they start to twist little things. And then you end up on a road way out there that has nothing to do with the scriptures here.

I need to warn you about those people. But thirdly, some of these people aren't just going to use their mouths. They might even bring signs and wonders. Do not be fooled by signs and wonders. That's what Jesus even says here in verse 22. For false Christs, pseudo-Christs and pseudo-prophets will rise. And notice what it says. They will show signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

There are going to be many who are charlatans and they will come to you and they will say, well look at my miracles, look what I've done, look at these things, and they will readily like, miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, sign, sign, sign, sign, sign.

Let me ask you, as we've read through the book of Mark, has Jesus been that quick to perform miracles like that? And to tell everybody to go tell everyone? Or when we came to the book of Mark and we met the Jesus of the book of Mark, when we met the real Christ face to face, did we find the Jesus who healed the blind man?

And he said, don't tell anyone. When they would accuse him, he'd say, go and let the signs speak for themselves. But Jesus didn't go parading around his signs and his miracles. His words were what were true. So I need you to be on your guard. Do not be misled. Be warned that there are people who are trying to trick you today. So I wish I had... This is one of these hard things about preaching, just the next verse. I wish I had to come to you today and be like, guys, look, we have some awesome stuff to talk about today. No, today I need to have a reality check with you.

There's no great introduction to this and there's no great outro to this. We just need to listen to Jesus' words. Beware. Take heed. People are going to try to trick you and deceive you. Keep your eyes fixed on the Jesus of Scripture. Don't let your heart be moved. They'll try to deceive you. But I love the little caveat there. if possible. Do not let it become possible for you to be the prey of these predators. Know the scriptures, look to Christ, be immovable in your faith, steadfast in your good works, and abounding in love.

Closing Prayer

The day of the Lord will come, but it ain't today. Let's pray. Lord, it is a hard passage and as we keep going through Mark 13, Lord, there are many things that we don't understand and we... Lord, we confess that to you. But Father, we pray for your protection over us. We pray, Lord, that you would keep us from falling prey. We pray that we would know you.

And Lord, we do pray that you would hasten that day. When the last trumpet will sound and like a flash of lightning in the sky, you will return and every soul will see. It will be not something hidden, but it will be seen in the clouds. And every knee will know and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So Father, please stop the charlatans. Please, Lord God, come quickly. In Jesus' name we pray. in.