“1 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15 So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. 18 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. 19 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. 22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time. 26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.
27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. 29 Immediately after the distress of those days “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”
30 At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32 Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. 34 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
36 No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
45 Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, “My master is staying away a long time,” 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
It’s easy to confuse the end of the world as we know it with the actual end of the world. Let’s go back three months to April. We were all largely confined to our homes for anything other than essential work and purchases. There seemed to be no way back to life as we knew it and also no path forward. Some would say that we are still there.
As of April 15, the United States had already spent over $6 trillion on the pandemic. That’s almost three months ago. I don’t know what the total is now, but I do know that the total national debt now stands at $26 trillion.
Political divisions are, in many ways, as tense as they have been since the Civil War. Everything imaginable from drinking straws to sex has been politicized. Citizens are having a hard time knowing who to trust. Some are afraid to turn on the news; others find themselves unable to turn it off. The 2020 election appears more likely to exacerbate our nation’s problems than to resolve them.
Many people are deeply concerned about the future of the American experiment, as our democratic republic has long been called. Some are wondering if this is the end of the world as they know it, and of course, it is easy for us as Christians to confuse the possibility of the end of the world as we know it with the actual end of the world.
This sermon series deals with what we are experiencing during this pandemic. We are certainly experiencing unrest. Some are saying this unrest, or the results of the upcoming election, or a possible financial collapse might be the end of the world as we know it. I’m not saying it is. I’m not saying it will be. I have no idea. I’m simply saying that this anxiety is present, and more than once over the past few months, I’ve been asked if this is the end of the world. This evening’s sermon is my attempt to respond.
It will prove insufficient. My response will prove insufficient because I can’t say everything that Scripture has to say about the end times in one sermon. We won’t address the future of ethnic Israel. We won’t study Ezekiel’s words on Gog and Magog. There is much more to say about the end times than we will have time to say this evening, but what we will say is certainly the main thrust of the Scripture’s message on the end times, which is that, in general, the Scripture doesn’t gives us signs of the times to help us predict. It gives them to help us persevere. That’s the claim of this sermon: the signs of the end were not given to help us predict; they were given to help us persevere. That’s what you need to remember as you watch the news or don’t watch the news.
We will see this in three points. First: signs of the times. Second: the return of the Son of Man. Third: be ready. We won’t be working through this chapter verse by verse; rather, we see how all of Jesus’ words in this chapter inform us about the signs of the times, tell us about the return of the Son of Man, and remind us to be ready.
First: the signs of the times. This isn’t the first age in which Christians have found themselves wondering if this is the end of the world. Jesus began this chapter by speaking of another such age. He was prophesying about the destruction of the temple in 70 AD; verse 1, “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
The end of the temple would have seemed like the end of the world to first century Jews. That was the center of their lives. The fall of Rome would have seemed like the end of the world to millions. The Thirty Years War in which Catholics and Protestants were killing each other seemed like the end of the world to any number of Christians. Life under Nazism would have seemed like the end of the world to Christians in a number of nations. It’s no surprise that God-fearing people in those days wondered if the end of the world were near. It’s right to think about the end of the age at such a time as that. It’s right to think about the end of the age at such a time as this. Jesus gave these signs so that we would think about the end when the signs were clear. He gave them to remind us to be ready.
These signs are nothing new, and Jesus desire for us to think about the end is nothing new. The signs Jesus lists in this chapter have been going since his ascension. We’ve been living in the last days since then. Any number of Scriptures point that out. 1 John 2:18, “Children, it is the last hour.” Hebrews 1:1, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” 1 Corinthians 10:11, “they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
So, if you are looking to see what must take place before Jesus returns, recognize that these signs have taken place. As our Lord told his disciples on that day, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Jesus didn’t give signs to help the disciples then or now predict the future. He gave these signs to help his disciples then and now obey in an uncertain present.
Remember that when you see these signs in the church. Remember that when you see verse 11 in action, “many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.” There were any number of popular heretics in Paul’s day. There were any number of popular heretics in Augustine’s day. There are any number of popular heretics today. Fredrich Dale Bruner is right, “the false teachers will not be wimps, they will be winners; they will not be dying on the vine, they will be almost unbelievably fruitful.” Don’t be surprised when see that. Don’t consider that to be anything new. Consider that a reminder that the end is coming.
Don’t be surprised when you see apathy in the church; verse 12, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.” Don’t be surprised when it seems like no one actually believes. Don’t even be surprised when you see church members people turn on each other to win points with the culture; “many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,” as Jesus said. That has happened. That could happen.
There is nothing new about apostasy or idolatry among God’s people; verse 15, “when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” In 167 BC, Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed a pig to Zeus in the temple of the Lord. In 40 AD, Caligula attempted to put a statue of himself in the temple. These signs should have made the faithful think about the last days. Apostasy and idolatry should make us think about the end times.
Persecution should make us think about the end times, and there is nothing new about persecution; verse 9, “you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.” There was persecution in the early church from the Jews, under the Roman Empire, during the Reformation; numerically, the bloodiest century for the church was the twentieth, but, of course, we are only twenty years into the twenty-first century and persecution is rampant in many parts of the world today. Simply because we American Christians might see persecution as an increasingly real possibility is no reason to think that the end times are somehow more upon us than they were upon Christians in Pergamum two thousand years ago. It should make us think about the end though, just as it was intended to make those first century disciples of Jesus think about the end.
There have been horrible times in this world and there will be; verse 21, “there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.” If I lived during the destruction of the temple, I would think that time was upon us. I would also think that time was upon us if I lived during the reign of Nero. I would also think that time was upon us if I lived during the Black Plague.
Find me a century in which there have been no wars or rumors of wars, no nation rising against nation, no famines or earthquakes as Jesus put it. Those have been constant and yet to everyone in them, it certainly felt like the end of the world as they knew it, and so Jesus included them in this list. The end of the world as we know it should make us think about the end of the world.
So if these signs were not given to help us predict the future, and if they have always been among us, what are they good for? They remind us that we are living in the end times; we need such reminders because we are prone to forget. Case in point: I dare say that you’ve given more thought to the end times in 2020 than you did in 2019. Seeing the signs around you reminded you that this will all come to an end at some point.
We tend to forget that. We are very prone to live like the world in this regard. We say with the worldly man in the book of James, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” We forget what James knew, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.” The signs of the times remind us that we truly don’t know what will happen tomorrow.
Jesus gave us these signs to remind us that this world will come to an end. He didn’t give us these signs to help us predict when it would come to an end. If he intended for us to create timelines of prophecies, he never would have spoken of his own return the way he did. That return is, after all, what ends the world. That’s our second point: the return of the Son of Man.
Our attempts to predict the end of the world based on signs is rather strange given that not even Jesus knows when he will return; verse 36, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Creating precise timelines of prophecies is an attempt to know more than Jesus.
The signs of the times have been occurring and will occur until this return, but Jesus says so will the normalcy of life, which makes it impossible to predict the end; verses 37-39, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”
The routine of life occurred and occurs even in the midst of signs. People were marrying and giving in marriage during the Black Plague. People were eating and drinking in Nazi Germany. There has been and will be normalcy even in the midst of the signs. Both have always been occurring together.
The return of Jesus will interrupt that. It will be a sudden and obvious interruption; verse 27, “as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” Lightning arrests your attention. It demands your attention. You can’t miss it. That’s how it will be with the return of Christ. No one will be wondering if this is it. Everyone will know that this is the end of the world.
People will be utterly terrified because it is so sudden. They’ve had their entire lives to repent but now judgment has come upon them; verse 30, “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn.”
They will mourn because Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. His first coming was an invitation to repent; “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.” His second coming is a summons to judgment, and no one will escape this judgment.
There are horrible deeds done every day in this world. Lies are spun that destroy reputations. Livelihoods are destroyed by the greed of men who don’t need any more money. People make and impose decisions under which they themselves would never live. Men and women paint themselves with virtue while condemning actual virtue. Good is called evil. Evil is called good. God sees. God knows. God will call it all to account. “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs,” as Jesus put it.
No one will escape. People kid themselves when they think they might. As Kierkegaard put it, “Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when everyone has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this?” No man can slip away. Christ will return and he will not be deceived as easily as people deceive themselves. As John the Baptist put it, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
The return of Christ will not only usher in the judgment, it will also usher in the new creation; verse 29, ‘Immediately after the distress of those days “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”’
This creation will not continue. The place where you are sitting will be destroyed. As Peter put it, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”
The end of the world will not rehabilitate this world. It will destroy it. God will make a new one. This is why the Bible ends with pictures of a new Eden, which is at the same time a city, which is at the same time the Holy of Holies. It is all of these and more. It is something familiar and new. This is what the return of Christ will bring. This is why the Bible ends saying, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
What that means is even if it is the end of the world as you know it, you are longing for a new world anyway. Even if it truly is the end of the world, you are longing for this new world.
This judgment is coming, and this new creation is coming. It is coming with the return of Christ. You don’t know when that will be; “no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
(At this point I realized that we were past time so I turned the next point into a sermon of its own)