Signs of the Times Mark 13

Mark Chapter thirteen contains what it often called the Olivet discourse. It is called that because this discourse took place on the Mount of Olives or Mount Olivet.

The Olivet discourse has been a source of much discussion and controversy over the years. There have been entire books written over the debates that exist over the things that Jesus teaches here.

In God’s providence we are studying the book of Mark, and Mark is interesting because when it comes to the Olivet discourse, the majority of time is spent working through Matthew and Luke’s account, and Mark just kind of gets a nod here and there for cross referencing, but Mark doesn’t tend to be the primary text for individuals studying the Olivet discourse.

There are reasons for this.

1. Marks account is the shortest.

2. There is little in Marks account that doesn’t also appear in either Matthew or Luke.

Thus some say that if you really want to know what’s going on, you should just flip on over to Matthew or Luke to get the whole account! Thus, Mark becomes the forgotten middle child in the discussion.

Well, we do not want to forget Mark. Especially because, we aren’t currently studying Matthew or Luke, and we ARE studying Mark.

Let me pause there and ask you this.

Have you ever wondered why we have four Gospels?

Have you ever wondered why three of those Gospels have so much overlap that they get their own nickname. They are the synoptic Gospels. There are books published that harmonize and blend the Gospels into one account to try to give us the full picture of what’s going on in the life of Jesus.

And yet, we weren’t given one account of Christ. We were given four.

So it’s worth remembering that… ->

Mark is Mark. Matthew is Matthew. Luke is Luke. John is John.

We have four Gospel because each Gospel writer had their own unique audience, their own unique purpose in writing, and their own goals and intents that they desired to accomplish.

The Holy Spirit was at work in each one such that they all give us a true and non-contradictory account of Christ, and yet have different emphases and purposes with their book.

Why is this important? As we will discuss momentarily, there is a temptation when studying the Gospels, and especially with studying the Olivet Discourse to compare what Mark says with Matthew and Luke, and if Matthew or Luke make more sense to you, you import that meaning into Mark and let Matthew and Luke tell you what Mark is saying.

But if each writer had a different purpose in writing, we run the risk of missing what Mark trying to say as we lay Matthew and Luke over the top of it! And if we do that, we never end up teaching Mark at all, only Matthew and Luke.

Some day, by God’s grace, we will walk through those other Gospels and see what they teach.

Here, today, we want to study Mark.

Today’s sermon is going to be different from most other sermons that I preach. My goal today is provide some theological context to our passage, help us understand what our approach and methodology is as we study texts like this, and then give an overview of the chapter.

Then, Lord willing, we walk through the chapter verse by verse and take a closer look at all the details.

First, allow me to provide some theological and methodological context.

Theological And Methodological Context

The Olivet Discourse is a discourse about the End Times. It is Jesus’ prophecy about the end of the age and His second coming and the things that will happen in between.

And of course, everyone in the whole world agrees about the nature of what happens in the End Times, right?

As we think about the theological and methodological context there are a few things we need to keep in mind.

There are disagreements within Christianity about how these texts should be understood.

These disagreements exist, because different people have different methodologies for how they approach and understand the Bible. You’ll have to forgive me, but I am going to get a little bit technical. Most of the time I try to do what I can to avoid being overly technical, so I hope you understand that when I do get technical, its because these things really matter and it’s important for you to know this information.

We here at Pillar Fellowship embrace a method of understand Scripture that is called the Grammatical, Historical, Contextual, and sometimes called Literal approach to Scripture. This is a methodology of studying Scripture that leads us to seek the authorial intent of a text. Whenever I am studying a text to preach, my number one goal, before I get to anything else, before I get to application, before I get to what this text means in our modern context, before I get to any of that, my number one goal is to answer one primary question: What was the original author trying to communicate? What did the original author want his audience to understand? We believe that we can only properly understand what the text means to us when we properly understand what the text meant in the mind of the original author.

Coupled with this is an understanding something called Progressive Revelation. Don’t let the word progressive scare you, it has nothing to do with our modern progressive movements. The principle of progressive revelation simply acknowledges that God did not give humanity all of Scripture all at once. He gave it progressively over time. Embracing that principle has an effect on how we read and understand the Bible. There are some Christians who take the NT and see details there and then take that knowledge back with them to the OT and try to read the NT into the OT, and they look at some promises and prophecies that were made to Israel, for example, and say, “hey, that’s fulfilled spiritually in the church”. We don’t follow that methodology. Embracing the principle of progressive Revelation means that we start with the earlier Revelation and understand what God was saying through the prophets then at the time that they wrote it, and that meaning is fixed. it doesn’t change. So when we get to the NT, the OT prophecies maintain their meaning because they have already been established.

Third, we believe what we believe about the end times as a result of our methodology for studying Scripture. If we consistently apply a literal, grammatical, historical, contextual hermeneutic that embraces the principle of progressive revelation to the text, then that will lead us to certain conclusions about the End Times.

Thus, we here at Pillar Fellowship we believe and teach what is called Premillennial Eschatology.

Here is our doctrinal statement on these things:

The Second Advent of Christ. We believe in that "Blessed Hope," the personal, imminent, pre-tribulation and premillennial coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His redeemed ones; and in His subsequent return to earth, with His saints, to establish His millennial kingdom (1 Thess 1:10, 4:13-18, 5:9; Zech 14:4-11; Rev 3:10, 19:11-16; 20:1-6).

This is premillennial eschatology. The word Eschatology mean the study of the Last Things, or the study of the End Times. We unappologetically believe in a pretribulational rapture of the Church, which means that we believe that the church is going to be caught up together in the air before God unleashes the great tribulation and judgment upon the earth. We believe in the premillennial return of Christ, which means that we believe that, at the conclusion of the 7 year tribulation period Jesus Christ is going to Return to Earth before the Millennial Kingdom, and when he does he will establish His Kingdom and will reign for 1000 years. A full millenium. This is why it is call Premillennial, because Jesus come before the Millennial Kingdom starts.

Now again, this is a result of our study methodology. It leads us to this conclusion.

But, as I mentioned, not every Christian agrees with methodology or this conclusion.

There are some Christians who embrace what is called “amillennialism” which means they don’t believe in a literal physical kingdom, they believe the passages of the Bible that speak of the kingdom to be using metaphorical, symbolic, or allegorical language and interpret those passages to mean that the Kingdom is now in a completely spiritual sense. So the return of Christ is not in relation to the Kingdom, and the only prophetic event remaining is His return where he will usher in the eternal state.

There are some who affirm what is called “post-millennialism” which means that they believe that Jesus is going to come back after the millennial kingdom. Those who embrace this idea teach that it is our responsibility as Christians to build the kingdom here and now, and that when Jesus returns we will welcome him, turn the kingdom over to him, and live under his rule for the rest of eternity.

Premillennialism: Christ returns before the establishment of the Kingdom Amillennialism: There is no literal Kingdom; the Kingdom is spiritual and metaphorical Postmillennialism: Christ returns after the establishment of the Kingdom

In the history of the Church, Premillennialism was the dominant view until Augustine popularized a form of amillennialism, which then become the most common view, and probably still is today. But you need to know that in our current day and age, post-millennialism is coming increasingly popular and those who adhere to that teaching are becoming more and more vocal and active.

How should we think of those differences?

We are convictionally premillennial as I have said, but we also much affirm that the people who hold to other views are still brothers and sisters in Christ. We consider the different eschatological views to a discussion of secondary importance. Things like the Gospel Message, the nature of the Trinity, Biblical morality, we would say are all of primary importance, but most eschatology discussions have to be understand as secondary. There have been countless men and women over the years who hold to a different position than us on these matters, but they are godly saints who love the word, love the Lord, proclaim the Gospel, and they love the church. Most of those who hold to a different position aren’t evil. They differ from us on a secondary issue.

Though these things are of secondary importance, they are still important. We would argue that those who differ from us are in error. While we would say it is heresy to hold to amillennialism or post millennialism, we would say they are in error because because we believe it goes against what the Bible teaches, and we want everyone to understand the word of God accurately! Though we recognize that we will share eternity with individuals who differ from us on these issues, I still believe we will give an account for how we lead and taught others, and someday in glory we will, of course, get to tease them about us being right all along.

I jest, but I say it like that because I want us to maintain a balance in how we handle this discussions. We want to make sure that we are handling these conversations with grace. We need to handle these conversations with humility. We need to be willing to be like the noble Bereans and open us the Scriptures to see if these things are so. Which means, be willing to consider if you have been wrong. There have been times when studying a text that I used to think it taught one thing, but now I think it teaches another. That means I was wrong then, or I’m wrong now, or maybe I am wrong both times. If we aren’t willing to reexamine a text, that may speak of arrogance. Of course, I do think we’ve got it right. I’ve studied enough to say I’m pretty confident of that. But if I’m arrogant in that confidence, I lose the opportunity to sharp myself and others. So. Patience. Humility. Grace. All those things are needed for these discussions.

Alright. So there’s premillennial, that’s what we believe, then there is amillennial, and post millennial views.

I gave us an incredibly brief survey of the main positions. Why is that relevant?

As we embark on a study Mark 13, which is Jesus’ eschatology, the differing eschatological views will tend to impact someone’s interpretation of some of Jesus’ words.

There are places in the Olivet Discourse that would seem as though Jesus is speaking of a very near event, namely the destruction of Jerusalem that took place historically in 70 AD. Then there are other portions of the text that would seem as though Jesus is speaking of the end of the age, the second coming, and the final judgment.

Those who hold to an amillennial or postmillennial viewpoint are going to tend to see more of the discourse as referring to 70 AD and the historical downfall of Jerusalem.

Those who are more Premillennial will tend to see more of it as still future with the Great Tribulation and then the second coming of Christ.

Consequently, when it comes to interpreting the Olivet Discourse, Premillennialists tend to really like Matthew’s account, because Matthew has language that really makes it sound like he is talking about the Tribulation and Second Coming, while those who hold to the other understandings are going to favor Luke’s account, since there are details in Luke’s account that make it sound more like Jesus is talking about the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

And then when it comes to Mark, everyone tends to read it in light of Matthew or Luke, whichever they prefer, and base their conclusions on that.

As we’ve already discussed, we don’t want to simply import our theological understandings from other texts onto this text and force this text into our theological grid. We are not the masters of the text, we must submit to the text.

And if you’ve noticed, I’ve already spent a solid XX minutes talking about theological and methodological context, and we haven’t even begun to open up Mark yet!

And in many ways, that’s a shame. There is so much noise out there about these texts, that these things needed to be communicated. I want you to understand not just the conclusions that we take, but why we take them. I want you to understand why we stress the things we do when it some to texts like this one.

So far I’ve given broad stroke theological and methodological background and context. Let’s start considering the passage itself.

Nearly every commentary that I read as I studied for this text made a big deal out of the complexities of this passage. They noted the different positions that different authors have. One author said this text is fraught with what he called “puzzling exegetical problems” and another preacher reacted to that by saying it was the understatement of the century as the text is more of an exegetical minefield that someone might want to exit as quickly and as carefully as possible.

But is that really the best way to think about this text?

Should I be trying to scare you of the nightmares of trying to make heads or tales of this text?

Did Mark write this text in such a way that is impossible to discern what’s really going on?

I believe the answer to all of those questions is no. Mark is understandable.

Mark 13 IS sufficiently clear to communicate Mark’s Emphases

The more I look at this text, the more I’m convinced. It really isn’t that difficult. I believe this text is clear enough for us to grasp what Mark wants us to know.

Are there challenging portions to Mark 13? Yes. Are they so challenging that it distorts and masks what Mark is trying to communicate. No, and not by a long shot!

I believe there are two primary factors that introduce the difficulties in our text.

Too often, we are asking the wrong questions.

So often our questions are not “what is Mark seeking to communicate” by “how does Mark fit with my theological presuppositions?” It’s simply the wrong question.

Second, too often we try to make Mark say what Matthew or Luke say. I’ve already addressed that, so I won’t belabor the point.

I’m convinced that the vast majority of the problems in the so-called minefield vanish away if we are asking better questions and seeking Mark’s intent, not Matthew’s and not Luke’s.

Here’s is what may be the single most helpful thing to keep in mind as we study this text, and this relates to asking the right questions:

Mark is more interested in our practical response to the prophecy than he is in the details of chronology.

REPEAT

If you read Matthew and Luke, you will find several words that reveal a pretty clear order of events. This happens after that. Before these things. After those days.

Mark has hardly any of that kind of flow.

What Mark does have are commands: Be alert! Watch out! Stay awake!

If you are coming to this text and asking it questions about chronology, you are likely to be disappointed, and the reason for that is that Mark isn’t interested in a strict chronology. He is interested in your faithfulness.

So we can spent all of our time synthesizing the data and making our charts and timelines, and I’m pro-chart! I’m pro- timelines. But if we do that so much that we miss what Mark wants us to take home, we’ve missed the point.

So often the biblical authors are not always concerned with giving you a perfect prophetic calendar. Sometimes they are giving you a calendar, but sometimes they are more interested in shaping your character.

Prophecy is often more about our character than it is a calendar

And as much as I can tell, Mark seems to be one of those authors who is more concerned about your character than he is the calendar.

As we move this text we will see over and over again. Be alert! See to it! Watch out! Do not be deceived! Stay Awake!

We must be careful that we do not miss the instruction that is being given while we are trying to make our timelines.

Bow that we are 30 minutes into our time, I want to read through the text so that is with you as you go about your week. I will then briefly sketch out where we are going over the next few weeks, give us one final takeaway, and then we will be done.

Mark 13 ESV

And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. “But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. “But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter his house, to take anything out, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not happen in winter. For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. And then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand. “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”

Over the next five weeks, Jim and I will be working through this text section by section.

Non-Signs of the End - vs 1-13

Abomination of Desolation - vs 14-23

The Coming of the Son of Man - vs 24-27

The Lesson of the Fig Tree - vs 28-31

The Lesson of the Man on a Journey - vs 32-37

What we will notice as we move through this is the consistent charge to be alert. Be ready. Be discerning. Don’t be deceived. More important than all of our timelines is that we live as a church that is watching and waiting for the return of Christ.

In a moment we are going to see a song that I plan to have us sing again over the next several weeks.

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