End Times: Signs of the Times
Notes
Transcript
Before we get into the lesson tonight:
Possible change in Wednesday nights
i. Smaller
ii. More about relationship
iii. Some video based
iv. Some affinity based
v. Months with no Wednesday Bible study
vi. Thoughts?
April 19, 2023 End Times: Signs of the Times
Wednesday
Occasionally a dying parent or a dear friend has the privilege of saying goodbye and sharing their final words with those they love.
Such words are so pregnant with meaning that one hangs on the meaning of every phrase.
Such is the farewell discourse of Jesus in the second Gospel.
It is Jesus' final words of warning and encouragement to his disciples about two coming events:
one which would happen in the lifetime of the first disciples
and another which may take place in ours.
While the chapter is considered one of the most difficult in the Gospel of Mark, it contains an encouraging promise.
Since God brought about the events that Jesus prophesied would take place in the lifetime of the first disciples, he will certainly accomplish the final event. In this study we will explore the connection between the two and learn how to be watchful.
1. Share any experience you have had of a dying person's farewell thoughts.
If this has not been your experience, describe what subjects would be uppermost in your own mind if you were given one last chance to speak with those you love.
My father: I love you and I’m proud of you.
Purpose:To show how fulfilled promises made by Jesus inspire our watchfulness for the greatest promise of all—the promise that Jesus will come back in glory to receive his own.
General note. In His farewell address on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem, Jesus was pointing to events that would happen in the future and instructing his disciples on how they were to live when he would no longer be with them.
Read Mark 13:1-13
2. Overlooking the temple from the Mount of Olives, Jesus and the disciples would have an excellent view of Herod's temple, described as a mountain of white marble covered with pure gold. What terrible events does Jesus predict (Mark 13:1-13)?
White Board:
Temple completely demolished
(Sunday I said everything changed) Even though Messiah came there will still be: false teachers/prophets/messiahs; there will still be many gullible (Jim Jones, David Koresh, Moonies, Alien-seekers, conspiracy theorists, etc.
Wars
Cold wars (economic, rhetoric, etc.)
Earthquakes
Famines
Persecution (not new, except new for Christians)
Gospel preached to all the world
Opportunities to speak of Jesus and the Gospel
Anointing of the Holy Spirit (to speak, etc.)
Betrayals of the most intimate kind
Hatred
Question 1. Jesus prophecies like Malachi in Malachi 3:1–6
Malachi 3:1–6 (LSB) “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says Yahweh of hosts. 2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a smelter’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 “And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to Yahweh offerings in righteousness. 4 “Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to Yahweh as in the ancient days and as in former years. 5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the sojourner and do not fear Me,” says Yahweh of hosts. 6 “For I, Yahweh, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
This passage describes the coming of the Lord to purify and refine his rebellious people. This was fulfilled in the events prophesied by Jesus.
The background of this passage is the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by the Roman emperor Titus in response to Jewish insurrection, a literal fulfillment of prophecy. But at the time of the writing of Mark this event had not happened. So this prophecy and its warnings had immediate urgency for the first generation of believers about to enter a tumultuous period of history.
As we shall see, it also has great significance for us long after the prophecy of the destruction of the temple was fulfilled. While the first readers of the Gospel were asked to trust the eternal word of Jesus (13:31) concerning two future events—
(1) the destruction of the temple and the surrounding disorders,
and (2) the coming of the Son of Man to consummate the new temple of his people—
we have the privilege of being able to trust the God who fulfilled the first prophecy as we wait for the fulfillment of the second.
What disappointments does Jesus prepare the disciples to face?
Still wars where we send our young people off to die
No deliverance from facing natural disasters
Persecution
Betrayal
Hatred
3. In your own words, what answer does Jesus give to the disciples' questions in Mark 13:4: "When will these things happen?" and "what will be the sign that they are about to be fulfilled?"
Questions 3–4. “In those days” (v. 24) (the days of the prophetic fulfillment) is an expression from the Old Testament normally associated with last times.
The “Son of Man” is the chosen title of Jesus for himself, drawn from the figure of a supernatural person in Daniel 7:13 who receives the worship of all nations.
Daniel 7:13–14 (LSB) “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And came near before Him. 14 “And to Him was given dominion, Glory, and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not be taken away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.
Jesus speaks of his Second Coming in a personal, visible and triumphant manner in terms of the coming of the Son of Man.
This section of Old Testament imagery is expressed in a form of literature called apocalyptic, meaning “to unveil.” Mark 13 is sometimes called “the little apocalypse” because of its similarity to the last book of the Bible, which bears the name Apocalypse, or Revelation.
Apocalypse is a lost literary genre in modern Western Christianity.
Apocalypse was to the first century what science fiction is to the twentieth.
Apocalypse is a form of revelatory literature in which cosmic upheavals affecting the sun and moon signal the intervention of God in history.
The coming of the Son of Man “with the clouds” signals the end of the veiledness we presently experience in our relation to God and his purposes.
Here Jesus (who claimed to be greater than the temple) uses the coming destruction of the temple—the visible center of the gathered chosen people—to speak of the eventual replacement of the temple by the Son of Man surrounded by his reconstituted people from all nations.
The apocalyptic form of speech calls for radical discipleship.
READ Mark 13:14-23;
4. Jesus describes the imperative of being ready for an escape to a safe haven. What might divert disciples from watching carefully for the signs of these times and from readiness for their escape (Mark 13:5-23)?
The parable of the soils: Matthew 13:18–23 (LSB) “Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. 20 “And the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. 22 “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 23 “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”
What might… ?
Shallowness
The devil
Affliction, persecution
Worry of the world ( what is this? More attention to, social media, Fox News, Newsmax, etc. than the Bible,
Prayer, Holy Spirit)
“deceitfulness of wealth”
Question 5. William Lane notes that the nineteen imperatives found in verses 5–37 suggest that “the primary function of chapter 13 is not to disclose esoteric information but to promote faith and obedience in a time of distress and upheaval” (William L. Lane, Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, NICNT [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974], p. 446).
While the words of Jesus concerning the stresses ahead were literally fulfilled in the lifetime of the first disciples, they offer stark realism about the difficulty believers will face in every generation. The world will not get better and better before the Lord comes. The Christian life will never be easy.
Believers will experience rejection because they are associated with Jesus. The “birthpangs of the Messiah” is a favorite Old Testament theme of judgment (Is 13:8; 26:17; Jer 4:31; 6:24; 50:43; Hos 13:13; Mic 4:9).
Isaiah 13:6–8 (LSB) Wail, for the day of Yahweh is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. 7 Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man’s heart will melt. 8 They will be terrified, Pains and labor pangs will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame.
The statement that these religious, social, personal, familial and natural disasters are only the beginning of the travail (13:8) suggests that the second fulfillment of the passage (the appearance of the Lord Jesus in triumph) might be long delayed. In the meantime the disciples will proclaim the gospel to all humankind (13:10), a crucial end-times activity that will not be impeded by social disruption or persecution.
In what similar ways could natural disasters and false spiritualities lead believers today to a false sense that the end has come?
We think it something extraordinary when it is just ordinary
The Thessalonians thought it:
2 Thessalonians 2:1–12 (LSB) Now we ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken in your mind or be alarmed whether by a spirit or a word or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it has not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the sanctuary of God, exhibiting himself as being God. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? 6 And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8 And then that lawless one will be revealed—whom the Lord Jesus WILL SLAY WITH THE BREATH OF HIS MOUTH and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming— 9 whose coming is in accord with the working of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of unrighteousness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 And for this reason God sends upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness.
5. Jesus says (of the destruction of the temple) that these things will happen "in this generation" (Mark 13:30). In what ways will the Second Coming of Jesus (the Son of Man) more than compensate for the loss of the temple?
We don’t have to go to Jerusalem — we can worship wherever we are.
Beauty
Segregated (Jews?Gentiles)
Crowded (might not get in)
6. How does Jesus' language express the absolute dominion with which he will reign as King when he comes (Mark 13:24)?
7. Why is it significant that the elect are gathered "from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens" (Mark 13:27)?
Question 7. The vision of people from the ends of the earth gathering around Jesus (v. 27) is related to the proclamation of the gospel to all people (v. 10). Both the coming of the Son of Man and the preaching of the gospel to all nations are end-times events.
What is the relationship of this prophecy of a great gathering to the first prophecy of the destruction of the physical temple?
8. With which character can you identify in Mark 13:32-37?
9. The Second Coming of Jesus will mean for each individual what his or her death will mean: the end of one's personal world. What will it mean for you to live each day with your bags packed up and ready to go?
10. How will you "be on your guard" for diversions, and "keep watch" for the coming of the Son of Man both in times of social disruption and in times of relative security?
§ Apocalypse is arson—it secretly sets a fire in the imagination that boils the fat out of an obese culture-religion and renders a clear gospel love, a pure gospel hope, a purged gospel faith.
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Eugene Peterson, "The Apocalyptic Pastor," The Reformed Journal 38, no. 2 (1988): 17.
LifeGuide Topical Bible Studies - End Times: Practical Heavenly Mindedness.