Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 21:5-38
"Take your Bible out. If you did not bring one with you, there should be one in front of you, in the seat. I want you to find Luke chapter 21. There's an outline in the bulletin. We'll work through that outline this morning. Luke 19 10 says, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." And by the time you get to Luke 21, you are hours away from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. So we'll put up, as we've put up the last few weeks, this is the last few days that Jesus spent on earth before He was crucified. On Sunday He entered Jerusalem. On Monday He cleared the temple. On Tuesday He's teaching. That's where we're at right now. On Wednesday we don't know what He did on that particular day. We assume maybe He was with the disciples. He was teaching, maybe in the temple, maybe in the surrounding villages around Jerusalem. On Thursday He celebrated the Passover. He prays in Gethsemane on Friday. He's arrested, tried, crucified, and buried. And then on Saturday He is dead in the grave and Sunday He rises back to life. And so we're only hours away. Our passage, Luke 21, starting in verse 5 to 28 is a passage known as the Olivet Discourse. And it's called the Olivet Discourse because when Jesus spoke these words, He was standing on the Mount of Olives. And so I'm a visual learner. I like to see pictures of things. This is sort of a map of Jerusalem, ancient Jerusalem, how it was laid out. And the circle on the left is the temple mount, the temple complex, and that circle on the left. And then outside the city walls, across the little valley, the Kidron Valley, you see the Mount of Olives there over on the right. Put this next picture up. This is a picture looking from the temple complex out towards the Mount of Olives today. So it didn't look exactly like that in Jesus' day, but sort of you get the idea. If you were standing on the temple mount area where the temple was, and you looked across this little valley, you would see the Mount of Olives over in the distance. And then the next picture is if you were standing today on the Mount of Olives, looking back to the city of Jerusalem. Obviously that looks very different today than it did in Jesus' day. And you see this sort of gold building right here. That's the Dome of the Rock. It's a Muslim shrine. And just to the left of that, you see some looks like pillars in a little rectangular building. That's the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And Muslims control the temple mountain. There's a mosque there, and there's this Muslim shrine. But in Jesus' day, you would have looked across this valley. You wouldn't have seen all the big buildings, of course, but you would have seen the magnificent temple standing there on the temple mountain. So when Jesus preached this sermon, it's one of the last sermons that he preaches before he dies. He's standing on the Mount of Olives. He's just left Jerusalem where he's been teaching in the temple. They've walked out past the temple complex across the Kidron Valley, out onto the Mount of Olives. And that's where he says these words to the disciples. You can read this same sermon in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. All three of the synoptic gospels record it. They record different parts of it. It doesn't mean that they have different sermons or contradictory sermons. It would be like you coming to listen to me on a Sunday morning and then at lunch, somebody says, "Well, what was a sermon about?" There would be some things you remembered and some things you shared. And the person next to you would maybe remember things, different parts of the sermon. And so that's what you have with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The big idea in Luke and really also in the other gospels where you read this sermon is really simple. Jesus wants you to be prepared. He wants you to be ready for judgment and for salvation. He doesn't want anybody to be without excuse and to say one day, "Well, we didn't know that was going to happen." And so he's very clearly talking here about two things that will most certainly happen. The judgment of his enemies and the salvation of his people. And you see both of those things in this sermon and Jesus wants you to be ready for both of them. And so with that out of the way, I want you to look at Luke 21. We're going to begin in verse 5 and we're going to read all the way to the end of Luke 21. So you follow along as we read. Verse 5 says this, "While some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings?" He said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." And they asked him, "Teacher, when will these things be and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?" And he said, "See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying I am he and the time is at hand. Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified. For these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and in various places, famines and pestilences. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you, they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake, but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance. You will gain your lives." When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains and let those who are inside the city depart and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance to fulfill all that is written. Alas, for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, for there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars and on the earth, distress of nations and perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people feigning with fear, with foreboding of what's coming on the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. He told him a parable, "Look at the fig tree and all the trees. As soon as they come out and leaf, you see for yourself and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all is taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that they come upon you suddenly like a trap, for it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called all of it. And early in the morning all the people came to him in the temple to hear him. Let's pray. Father, we look at these verses and we know that they are debated and argued about. Our prayer this morning is very simple that you would give us understanding and clear minds to hear what Jesus is saying and to understand what He's not saying. Father, that we would not only understand what Jesus is telling us about the end and about this judgment on Jerusalem, but that we would also understand how to leave this place in obedience. That we wouldn't just come this morning and get a head full of knowledge. We wouldn't just come and have facts from history or from the text to win an argument, but that we would understand Jesus and we would leave in obedience. And so we pray that you would grant us understanding and we pray that you would prick our hearts and move us to obedience this morning. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So the passage is pretty simple. Jesus is giving us a lot of information, things that we need to know, but He's also telling us in these verses things that we need to do and the Bible, those are called exhortations. You are exhorted. You're commanded to do these things. And so our goal is really simple. We want to try our best to understand what Jesus is talking about and then understand also how we need to obey when we walk away from this passage. So on your outline, I've given you the outline of this passage. I've broke it down for you. And what I want to do before we get to the obedience part is just walk through it section by section. And I didn't give you a lot of space to take notes. You can jot some stuff down in the margin if you want to. But I just want you to see the major sections of this passage. Because if you don't, it can all sort of blur together and run together and you can miss some of the distinctions in what Jesus is saying. And you begin to think that He's saying some things that He's not saying at all. And so when you see these sections, it becomes more clear, which will then help us to obey in the right way. So first of all, let's understand the Olivet Discourse. And let's talk about the setting. The setting is in verse 5, 6, and 7. Jesus is teaching in the temple, the temple complex in Jerusalem. And He leaves that area to go out across the Kidron Valley up on the Mount of Olives with His disciples. And I know I showed you some pictures, but here's a model sort of what the temple complex looked like. I put this up a few times in the last couple of weeks. Over on the top right, you see there's four sort of columns or big structure standing up. That's a fortress. That was basically a military barracks that they had added on to the temple complex. And the big open courtyard is the court of the Gentiles. And then there's this inner wall, you can see around the temple in the middle. In this inner wall, you would come in and you would be in the court of the women. And then you would be in the court of the Jews. Jewish men could go there. And then you'd be finally in the court of the priest where only the priest could go. And then the tallest structure sort of square-shaped in the middle is the temple itself. And so this was the temple complex. And from what we know from history, not just from the Bible, but from history, it was a remarkable building. You may have heard of a guy named Herod the Great. Herod the Great started the project to refurbish and to expand and to sort of improve the temple that was there. You remember the exiles had come back from being in exile in Babylon. And they came back with the rubber bell. And they built this temple. And when you read about this rebuilt temple in the Old Testament, it's sort of a pitiful thing. Like the guys who remembered the old temple, Solomon's temple, saw the new one. And the Bible says they just wept because it's like, we're glad to have a new temple. But it's just not like the old one. And so Herod the Great, this ruler, begins this project in about 20 B.C. to build this complex and to make it nice and to beautify it and all of these things. And the entire project from beginning to end ends up taking about 83 years, which means it was started before Jesus was born, about 20 B.C. And it was finished about 63 A.D. And if you figure Jesus is about 30 years old right here, it's about 50 years into the construction project. It's not even all the way done yet, but they're working on it and they're getting close. And it's just this magnificent, beautiful, beautiful building. And Jesus and His disciples, as they're leaving, are having this conversation. And the disciples look up to Jesus and they say, "What an amazing, amazing building." Just sort of small talk. Like you would be walking with a friend and say, "What a beautiful sunset." Or, "Hey, what a what a beautiful landscape." You say, "What a beautiful building." It's amazing. And Jesus says, "You know, the day's coming when the whole thing is going to be flattened." Which is kind of shocking to hear because you understand from the timeline, it wasn't even done being built yet. Jesus says, "The day's coming where it's going to be flattened to the ground." And the disciples are just sort of shocked. When you read this story in the gospel of Mark, you learn that Peter and James and John and Andrew, two sets of brothers, Peter, Andrew, James and John. They come to Jesus privately after he says, "The whole thing's going to be knocked down." They come to him privately when they walk across the valley up on the Mount of Olives and they say, "For real?" The whole thing is going down to the ground. And they ask Jesus, "We know from the gospel of Matthew." Not just one question, but two questions. When you read it in Luke, it almost sounds like they have one question. When's it going to happen and what's the sign? But when you read the details in Matthew, you learn that they actually ask two questions. They say, "When is the temple going to get knocked down?" Question one. Question two, "What are the signs of the end of the age when you are going to come back?" Because Jesus has been talking to them, "I'm going to die. I'm going to suffer. I'm going away. I'm coming back." He's been saying these sorts of things to him. And so they're trying to put it all together and they're just flabbergasted that this building's going down. And they say, "When's the temple going to get knocked down?" And when are you coming back at the end of the age? Two questions, and in what follows, Jesus gives one answer. And it gets kind of tricky. Because you start reading through his answer and you say to yourself, "Is he talking here about the temple?" Question? Or is he talking here about the return of Jesus' question? And a lot of the confusion in the debate comes in where we don't know exactly or we get confused about what Jesus is talking about, the destruction of the temple or his return. Here's one way to think about this sort of prophecy in the Bible. How many of you have ever driven from West Texas to New Mexico? It's a lovely drive, right? You get out here and it's just so flat and it's beautiful and you drive and you drive and you drive and it's flat and it's flat and it's flat and it's flat. And then eventually it's like you come over a hill somewhere and you see that on the horizon. And you look out there and you say, "Man, we are finally getting close. We are finally getting close. We're almost there." And you look over there and you see that line of mountains. And from a distance, it looks like one long mountain, just one long mountain out there in the horizon. And you get a little bit closer and you get a bit closer. When you finally get up to that mountain, you realize it's not just one mountain. There's a peak here and then a little valley and then one mountain back further this way and then another little valley and another mountain over here. And there's great distances between these peaks but when you're way far away from it, you look out there in the distance and you say, "It just looks like one big thing." You get up upon it and you say, "No, it's different things." And they're spread out. That's the way prophecy in the Bible works. That's the way this sermon works from Jesus, the Olivet Discourse. When he says these words, everything is out there on the horizon. And he's talking about all these things are going to happen, answering these two questions. There's a temple going down and when are you coming back? Signs at the end of the age. He's describing all these things that are out there. And if you would have been there to hear it originally, you might have thought it was all just one big thing. But when you get up upon it, you realize it's not one big thing. It's coming in different stages and there's time between this event and that event and there's a great space in there. And so you have to be careful when you read this sermon, not to take something that Jesus meant to be closer in time and apply it to the end or vice versa as well. And so that's the setting. They've walked out of this temple. They've gone across the valley, up on the Mount of Olives and they have two questions. When's it going down and when are you coming back? And in what follows, Jesus gives them one long answer. And the first thing he talks about is the destruction of the temple. That's the next section after the setting is Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple. Just look in the text. I want you to see some of the promises Jesus makes here, okay? You're looking in your Bible. Verse 8 and verse 9, false prophets will come. Verse 10, there will be wars and rebellions. Verse 11, there will be natural disasters and signs in the heavens. Verse 12, all the way to 19, there's going to be persecution and it's going to be really bad. Family members are going to turn over. Family members, and he even gets to a point where he says, "Some of you will die for my name." Persecution will happen. Verse 20 to 23, Jesus says armies are going to surround Jerusalem. There's going to be a siege of this city. Verse 24 and 25, Jesus says, people will die by the sword and people will be taken into exile. All of these things, when Jesus talking about it, he's saying this is all leading up to the answer to the first question. When is the temple going to be destroyed? And he's saying all of these things will happen before no stone is left on top of another. And so we have the advantage of history and we can look back and say, how did his predictions pan out? Did all of these things happen just like Jesus said they were going to happen before the year 70 A.D. when the temple was flattened? Well, you can read from multiple ancient sources that there were all sorts of false prophets and false messiahs in Jerusalem. You can even read about some of them in the Bible that came after Jesus. So yes, there were false prophets and false messiahs. We know that in 66 A.D., the Jews rebelled and started a war against the Romans. It was not a very good decision, but they did it. 66 A.D., war breaks out, rebellion breaks out. You ever heard of Pompeii? The volcano that blew, big giant earthquake and destroyed a whole city? 63 A.D., that happened. Other volcanoes in the area, also you can read about in history. We know Jesus says here there's going to be famines and pestilence and blight and things like this. We know that during the reigns of some of these emperors they talk about in their territory, there were famines. They happened just like Jesus said they would happen. Josephus, one Jewish historian, says there was even a strange comment. I know we think ancient people weren't very smart, but they were pretty smart. In one day this comment flies by and he says, "We have no idea what that is. We've been charting things and mapping things. We have no idea what that is." We just saw this comment fly by, "Signs in the heavens," Jesus says. He talks about persecution. You can read about that in the book of Acts. You can read about it in chapter 8 that some of these people had to flee their homes because the persecution was so great. All of these things happening. That brings us to the last two parts of what Jesus says will happen before the temple goes down, the siege of Jerusalem and people dying by the sword and being taken into exile. Put a picture up on the screen for you. This is a guy named Titus. Titus in the year 69 A.D., 70 A.D., was a general in the Roman army. He was the son of the Roman emperor. Eventually he would become the emperor of Rome. In 69 A.D., he's a general in the Roman army. He takes four legions of Roman soldiers and he marches to Jerusalem and he surrounds the city. Because of the way the geography was laid out, it was pretty simple. He put three legions on the west side and he put one legion on the east side and ironically that legion on the east side camped on the Mount of Olives. So he surrounds the city. Remember Jesus says, armies are going to surround this city. He surrounds the city. It's close to Passover time. Titus was not a fool. He knows there's all sorts of pilgrims about to make their way to Jerusalem. And so he does something that was very cruel but very shrewd. He just sort of stands there and lets all the pilgrims go into the city to celebrate the Passover. We know that when that happened the city swelled up and there were hundreds of thousands of extra people in the city. So he lets all these people into the city, then he shuts it off. No water, no food in or out of that city for one month, two months, six months, a year, 18 months. No food allowed to enter that city that's swollen with pilgrims who came to celebrate the Passover. People who survived, not many survived. People who did survive and were taken into exile right about it and say that they were eating dirt to fill their belly. They were eating other people who died to fill their belly. It was a total disaster. The Jews did try to fight back. They would sort of, you know, get their forces together and try to branch out on some sort of raid. I read something I never read this week. One raid actually captured Titus. He was camped outside of Jerusalem and one raid got close to capturing the Roman general but they failed. Some people just tried to escape. They didn't try to fight back. They just tried to run. That was not a good plan either because if you tried to escape the city you were captured and crucified right outside the wall of Jerusalem. As a sign to everybody else inside Jerusalem that if you try to run away, this is what's going to happen. Eventually Titus gives the order to besiege the city. Eighteen months of just sitting and waiting, starving these people out. He gives the order to besiege the city. They break through the first wall pretty easily. They break through the second wall pretty easily. The third wall, the inner wall, was sort of the stronghold of Jerusalem and they put up a little bit of resistance there but eventually he breaks through that third wall and the accounts of the few who survived and were taken to exile basically say it was hand to hand combat in the streets of Jerusalem. Everybody for themselves. Some historians say that when Titus surrounded this city he gave the order to spare the temple. So some people say that Titus said kill everyone, destroy everything, take whatever you want but don't touch the temple. Other people said no he gave the order to flatten the temple. You believe what you want. I have no idea which one is true. This is what I know. They got the temple. They burned it to the ground. Every stone knocked down completely and totally destroyed. One man who was there was a man named Josephus. I mentioned him earlier. He had gone out at one point and tried to negotiate a surrender. It didn't work out. Titus was not interested in negotiating for surrender. Josephus eventually went out into exile with those who were taken from Jerusalem and by his historical account in the siege of Jerusalem 1.1 million people died by the sword. That's a lot of people. Over 100,000 taken into exile. Just like Jesus said it would happen. The city will be surrounded. The city will be besieged. People will die by the sword. People will be taken into exile. You read that. You understand what Jesus is saying when you look at the history of what happened and he says it's going to be a bad month to be pregnant. It's going to be a bad time for people with kids. It's going to be really, really bad. But he lays it out and he talks here about the destruction of the temple. That's coming. Remember the two questions. When is the temple going down? When is that going to happen and when you coming back? Signs at the end of the age. He doesn't date any of this but he says look, this is going to happen, this is going to happen, this is going to happen, this is going to happen and then it's going to go down. It happened just like he said it would. Then we move to an interesting couple of verses. On your outline I call this the apocalyptic transition. Verse 25 and 26 he starts saying there's going to be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars and the earth and the oceans and the powers of heaven are going to be shaken. Very simply, without spending too much time here, I just want you understand that really smart guys argue about these verses and they say, okay, all this stuff that Jesus is talking about in verse 25 and 26. Does that go with what's before it, the temple going down or do we take that the other direction and put it at the very end, the signs of the end of the age when Jesus is going to come back? And the very simple answer to that question is yes. It's a transition and you've got to understand that it's apocalyptic language, it's a form of Hebrew poetry that you're not supposed to take literal. Listen, there's a lot of people who want to sell you books today at Christian bookstores because they take apocalyptic language like this, they look up in the sky and they take it literal when it was never intended to be taken literal. Apocalyptic language in the Bible is used to prove one point, a dramatic upheaval is coming. There's a change coming and you need to be ready for it. And you look at this apocalyptic language, the sun and the moon and the oceans and the powers of heaven, all these things, Jesus is saying, when the temple goes down, it's going to be a change, folks. It's not going to be the same. And when I come back looking forward, it's going to be a change. Things are going to be different around here. Apocalyptic language in the Bible is to put it bluntly, a little bit idiomatic. So if I came to you after church and we're having a conversation and I said to you, hey, stop beating around the bush. You understand, I'm not talking about plants. I'm not talking about baseball bats. I'm using a phrase, a way of speaking to say, get to the point. And you need to understand in the book of Daniel or Ezekiel or here in the Olivet Discourse or especially in the book of Revelation, when you read this stuff, it's not that you're trying to take it literally and look up in the heavens and the sky and the weather patterns and all these things to see if these things are happening. You understand, it's idiomatic. And if you don't get that, you feel like an idiot. And Jesus is saying, look, a big change is coming. There's an upheaval coming. And it happened in 70 AD when the temple went down and it's certainly going to happen when Jesus comes back at the end of the age, which brings us to the last section. The last section of the Olivet Discourse is Jesus talking about His return, verse 27 to 38. Here's the main thing I want you to see. Look at verse 27. It says, "Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." We read Daniel 7 earlier, one like a Son of Man coming on the clouds. He's going to receive dominion. He's going to receive glory. When you read that, it all sounds very public to me. Like when He comes, you're going to know it. There's not going to be anything secretive about it. And a lot of people who want to sell you their in times book or their in times prophecy chart want you to think that Jesus is going to make some sort of secretive return. And Jesus is pretty clear here. You're going to see me. I'm going to be coming on the cloud. And I'm going to have great power and great glory. And Daniel 7 says, "Everlasting dominion will be given to me." He says almost right after that. Think about the fig tree. You see the blossom on the fig tree and you know what? It's almost spring time. We're almost there in West Texas, right? You're looking. When are the buds going to come out? When are we going to see the blooms? Because then we know it's almost time for spring. Some people take that little parable. Jesus told them a parable about the fig tree. Some people take that parable and they try to apply it to everything that Jesus just said in this sermon. And they say, "Look, we're looking for all these different signs so that we can figure out by watching the news and watching the weather and looking in a telescope, we can figure out when Jesus is going to come back." In the context of this sermon, Jesus gave us one sign to look for. Here it is. When you see me coming on a cloud, the kingdom is coming. If you see wars and rumors of wars, don't worry about it. That's going to happen. If you see pestilence and famine, that's going to happen. Of course, those things are going to happen. If you see people claiming to be me, of course, they're going to claim to be me. They're going to claim to speak for me. Don't worry about that stuff. Here's the one sign He gives us. When you see me writing a cloud and I have great power and glory, you'll know it's me. There won't be any questions. That's the sign that the kingdom is really, really close. The kingdom is near when you see me coming. And so He says, "You need to watch. You need to be ready. Don't be caught off guard. Don't be caught," He says, "in dissipation and drunkenness." Literally, don't be hung over when it happens. Be ready. Don't let it come upon you like a trap. Verse 36, "Pray for strength to endure on the last day." So that's the outline. That's how you break the sermon down. Now we're going to talk about lessons, okay? Lessons of what we need to do leaving in obedience to what Jesus says in this passage. And we're going to take Him from everything He said. I know the temple's already been flattened, but here's the biblical worldview. There's patterns in the way God saves His people all the way throughout the Bible. When you look at how God saved His people in the Old Testament, all these stories, you learn something about how God saves His people. When you look at how God judges His enemies in the Bible, you learn things about the judgments of God. And so we look back at this whole sermon. Some of it's already come to pass. Some of it we're still waiting for. And we take away these lessons about how we need to obey. Very simple lessons. Number one, first you need to know that God is sovereign and omniscient over all things. He knows the beginning from the end and everything in the middle. When you talk to Him in prayer, you don't need to update Him on anything. He knows what's going on. He's got it figured out. And He is completely in control of all of it. If this weren't true, Jesus would be a liar when He lays these things out in this sermon. If it wasn't certain that it would happen this way, then Jesus is just full of it. But He says, "This is exactly how it's going to happen. I'm telling you right now." These are the things that will happen before the temple's destroyed. And here's how you'll know the kingdom is close. I'm going to show up writing a cloud in great power and glory. When you read these predictions and these prophecies, you come away and you say, "It just sounds like God can do whatever He wants to do whenever He wants to do it. And He doesn't need or look for my permission, and nobody can stop Him from accomplishing His plan. And if that's the takeaway for you, then you've got it. He knows it all, and He's in complete control from the beginning all the way to the end. Second thing, believe that God will certainly judge those who dwell on the earth. Judgment is coming for those who dwell on the earth. And I had you fill that whole line in because that's a common phrase. You find it in verse 35, but you also find it throughout the book of Revelation. Book of Revelation talks about those who dwell on the earth. And when you read that phrase, it's talking about wicked, sinful, depraved humanity and rebellion against God. And Jesus is pretty clear. Judgment is coming on those people in the book of Revelation echoes that. Number three, do not plan on repenting later. If that's your plan, you need a new plan. If your plan is, "You know what? I'm going to live like hell now, and then I'm going to repent later, and I'm going to escape hell by repenting at the last minute." I'm just telling you, that is not a good plan. Because what Jesus is talking about is there is a day coming where the time for repenting will be gone. It will be too late. The time will pass. You need to be ready now. He says to watch. He says to be ready. Number four, what do you need to do? You need to ignore those who obsess over the details about the end of the age. Ignore them. Don't get upset or alarmed or fearful. Ignore them. There is one sign Jesus gives us in this sermon, and it's very simple, and I promise if you're around when it happens, you won't miss it. He's going to be riding a cloud. I've never seen that. But that's what he's going to do in great power and great glory. The Father's going to give him dominion. And when you see that, you know, that's the sign. It's almost time. And by almost, I mean almost. He's coming. So those who obsess about details, you don't need to buy their books, you don't need to watch them online or listen to them online, you don't need to go to their conferences, you don't need to let them upset you or alarm you. You don't need to try to decode current events and think, are we in the last days? Is Jesus going to make it another year? Is he going to come back this year, next year? Is it going to happen sooner? My kids are going to go, you don't need to worry about that. It's not the point of what Jesus is saying in this sermon. So we ignore those who obsess over the end of the age and the details about that. Number five, here's a tough one. Understand that persecution gives you a greater opportunity for witness. That's a tough one. That's exactly what Jesus says in verse 13, 14, and 15. When you face persecution, verse 13, this will be your opportunity to bear witness. And he says, you don't need to be afraid about what you're going to say. If you're walking with me, if you know me, if you love me, if you're trusting in me, you don't need to be fearful about that day. But you need to know that that's your opportunity to bear witness for my name. He says in here, some of you are going to die. Some of you, they will put to death. And then he has the audacity to turn around. And he says, not a hair on your head will perish. And you sort of want to look at him and say, well, which one is it, bud? Are they going to put us to death? Or is not even a hair on our head going to perish? And of course, the answer is both. Yes, all of it. This is what Jesus is saying elsewhere in the Gospels when he says, you don't need to be afraid of those who can kill you. And that's it. That's all they can do. Why would you be afraid of them? Fear the one who can cast both your soul and your body into hell. Don't fear those who all they can do is kill the body. This is what Jesus is talking about in the Gospels where he says, look, if you lose your life for me, even if you lose your life and you die, you live. All they can do is chop your head off. All they can do is put a bullet in your head. That's it. Don't be afraid. Not a hair on your head will perish, he says. Last thing that you need to understand and you need to walk away in obedience with is this, trust that God will be faithful to his promises and his people. God will be faithful to his promises and his people. No matter what happens or does not happen in your lifetime, you've got to rest on this. God will be faithful to his promises and to his people. He will be faithful. So I'll close with another story from history. I didn't tell you this earlier. In the verses we just read, Jesus is talking about the siege of Jerusalem, right? Armies will surround this city. And you remember what he told his people to do when they saw that, when you see these armies coming, what did he say? Did he say, hunker down inside the city? Did he say, come inside the walls and be safe? He said, you need to head for the hills. You need to get out of town when that happens. Listen, that may not seem so crazy to us, but in the ancient world, that was crazy advice. Because in the ancient world, you had one defense against an invading army and it was a wall. And if an invading army was coming, you wanted to get behind that wall, not on the other side, right? This is sort of like you go to the zoo. Don't get in the cage with the tiger. You stay on the other side of the wall. It's safe there. And that's what people thought. Here comes an army. We got to get inside the city. My goodness, Jerusalem, we have three walls. If they get the first one, we'll come inside the second one. They get the second one, we'll come inside the third one. We're safe. We have these walls. And Jesus says to him, listen, when you see the army surrounding Jerusalem, you head for the hills and you don't stay here. So I told you earlier that in 70 AD, a man named Titus, who eventually became Emperor of Rome besieged this city. Here's what I did not tell you. About three years earlier, somewhere around 67 AD, the governor of Syria named Cestius Galus invaded Jerusalem. This is before Titus. He took his armies from Syria, Cestius Galus, and he marches against the city of Jerusalem. He wants to conquer it. What do you think all the Christians in Jerusalem did when they saw him marching toward the city? You think they went inside the walls? You think they listened to Jesus and they said, we're out of here. That's the sign. This guy's coming. We're leaving. They bailed. They did what Jesus told them to do. They took off. They didn't just leave the city and go a few miles out. They crossed the Jordan River and went to an area called Pella. Today it's in the nation of Jordan. These Christians go and they just say, we're out. Jesus said, when you see the armies coming, you take off, we took off. Gone. Here's the funny thing. Cestius Galus was not as tough as he thought he was, and he couldn't take the city of Jerusalem. Everybody else, not the Christians, but everybody else holed up in the city. They just waited him out, and he eventually took his army and he went home. No harm, no foul. Three years later, when Titus, the general of Rome, marched with four legions of Roman soldiers against the city of Jerusalem, guess who was not there? The believers. They were in Pella. They left. They settled somewhere else. Was there a few there? Probably. Maybe had some of them gone back, I'm sure. But for the most part, this Christian population had left. You look at that and you say, what do you chalk that up to? Most of the followers of Jesus were spared the horrors that I told you about when Titus marched against Jerusalem. You say, well, they listened to Jesus. Yeah, but the fact that another army came and it was sort of like a fake sign almost, it got them out of there. Do you just say they were fortunate? Do you just say they were lucky? Or do you say, look, God knows the beginning from the end. He's in complete control of all things. Governors of Syria, generals of Roman legions, he had a plan all along and he told his people what to do. And when the time came, he was faithful to his promises and he was faithful to his people. Does that mean God has a plan where you're going to escape every instance of suffering? No. Jesus talks about that in this passage. He says, some of you, they're going to put to death. But he gives you the hope that even if they put you to death, I will be faithful to my word to you and I will be faithful to you. Not a hair on your head will perish. Even if you die, you're going to live. Jesus wants you to leave after you listen to this sermon, not worrying about in-time events and dates and current events and wars and famines and all these crazy things that happen in the world. He wants you to leave with rock solid assurance that no matter what happens in your life, he will be faithful to keep his promises and he will be faithful to you. Let me pray for you. Father, it's an awesome thing to read. Prophecies and predictions in your word and to see how they were fulfilled exactly like you said they would be. It's an awesome thing to read the promises that Jesus gives to his people and to know that we can have rock solid unwavering assurance that whatever happens, good, bad, or ugly, that you will be faithful to keep your word and you will be faithful to keep us your people. Father, help us not to be so obsessed and concerned with something that you told us not to worry about. It's the date of the end and the time of your return. But Father, help us to be ready for that day. Pray for the people in this room. I pray for those whose spiritual life is nothing more than a game. They think they can do one thing and maybe repent at the last minute or change later and I pray that you would wake them up from that delusion today. Father, I pray that we in this room would be ready and prepared and expectant when the big day comes. Father, as we lift our voices and sing, we're grateful for your grace. We're grateful for your mercy. We're grateful that Jesus came not just to tell us about the end but ultimately to give his life for ours and that through him we have hope. We have promises. We have assurances and they're certain and they're sure. So Father, we sing to you. We praise you for who you are. We praise you for what you've done for us sinful needy people through your Son. And we give you all the glory and the praise in Jesus' name. Amen.