Sermon Tone Analysis

PRAY

Do you ever get nervous about your future?

Are you ever tempted to worry and fear about the future condition of the world for your children or grandchildren?

Intro: Jesus is our confidence in the present, and he is our assurance about the future.

What will the end look like?

Will people recognize it when they see it?

How should the certainty of Christ’s return impact believers at the present time?

In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus now turns his attention more directly to the end.

- The marker for us in Luke’s Gospel was the final phrase from the previous verse, “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”

Another marker in Mt & Mk is that these last signs apparently come on the heals of an abnormally severe period of tribulation and dramatic false prophecy (Mt 24:24), Mt 24:29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days...” (Mk 13:24 is similar.)

What will the end look like?

(vv.

25-28)

Vv. 25-26 While we are to expect natural disasters and calamities throughout earth’s history (Lk 21:11), in the final days before Christ’s return the cosmic signs will become dramatically different than our normal experience.

Hence the reaction of “nations in perplexity” and “people fainting with fear and foreboding.”

So…

There will be greater tribulation and cosmic signs, followed by a dramatic, public, authoritative return of Christ.

The picture is one of anything unlike what we’ve seen so far (similar to the description in Mt and Mk and Revelation of the final tribulation on earth that precedes these signs).

What follows on the heals of these cosmic signs is the return of Christ in glory.

The picture Jesus gives of his glorious return fulfills the prophetic vision of Daniel 7:13-14.

Christ now comes back with the full force of heavenly kingdom authority and divine majesty.

v. 28 What brings dread upon the world who are not in Christ (vv.25-26), brings joyful expectation of triumphant vindication for the saints at the revelation of Jesus.

When he comes with the clouds, every eye shall see him (Rev.

1:7).

For those who did not submit to him before this, it will mean judgment, but for us who belong to him by grace through faith (whom he has made his own), we will know that our final redemption to be with him forever is literally just around around the corner.

Will people recognize the approaching end when they see it?

(vv.

29-33)

Jesus uses a nature parable about a fig tree (and other trees) sprouting to illustrate the way his people will know the end is near.

Just as the beginning of spring means summer is near, and is something quite plain from observation, so the signs that precede the end will be clear evidence that the end is near.

It seems best to understand that, yes, the generation of believers who experience this should know it when they see it.

But as I will argue under the next paragraph of verses, those who are ignoring warnings of judgment will not recognize his impending return even with all the preceding signs.

v. 31 the kingdom of God is near means the kingdom in its consummation.

“This form of the kingdom is related to the promise of total redemption in 21:28.”

(Bock, 1688) Just as people can observe the trees and know that summer is coming, so his disciples will be able to see the cosmic signs and know that their redemption is near, that the consummated kingdom of God is near.

v. 32 Three possibilities for “this generation will not pass away until all has taken place”:

It refers to the disciples being alive when “all these things” have begun (particularly their own suffering from the earlier verses and the events of AD 70) but have not been completed.

- Possible in prophetic genre, but seems unlikely in the immediate context of very last things.

genea could refer to an ethnic people, meaning the Jews, that their race would not pass away.

Perhaps possible, but would be a very rare use of the term.

A reference to the generation alive at the time that all these signs begin to take place.

That all of these things, from the greater tribulation onward would happen within a generation.

- This may be the strongest possibility in the context, which is showing that the consummation comes quickly once it comes.

These events will not drag out long.

“It is hard to be dogmatic about the meaning of this difficult text.” (Bock, 1692)

v. 33 Another (even more fundamental) Reassurance

The guarantee of Jesus coming again is more certain than the ground you walk on and the sky above you.

Why?

Because the teaching of Jesus is as faithful and permanent as the character of God.

Creation is less permanent than the truth Jesus is teaching.

His word is more permanent than the material universe.

We put so much stock in the security of the chairs we sit on, the homes we live in, the jobs which seem to provide for our needs.

We are both material and immaterial beings, and yet we tend to put faith in material things.

Which side of all this will pass away?

Which side remains?

… God the Holy Spirit is not visible to you, and yet he is just as real and more permanently secure than what you eyes can see.

Ok.

In my own presentation for you of the progression of thought, this v. 33 is essential to how Jesus tells them to apply what they’ve heard.

How should the certainty of Christ’s return impact us presently?

(vv.

34-36)

In this context of his glorious return, and reassurance of its certainty, Jesus has given his disciples the big-picture obvious signs that will precede the end… but does not give them a precise time when these things will take place.

In fact, compare what he tells them in Matt 24:36 = Mk 13:32.

And again the same context as the verses we have now come to in Luke, Mt. 24:42...

It is at this point in the discourse that Jesus shifts from what would be the obvious evidences to what they do not know, which is when.

And because they do not know when, they must live in such a way as to always be prepared for his coming.

I want to stay with the parallels for a moment to be sure we catch in the context that there are those who will, in spite of the obvious signs, go on living as if they have nothing to fear concerning the judgment of God.

Some will be caught unprepared at Christ’s return.

Let’s look at Mt 24, beginning at 37, right after the verse which identical to the one we just quoted from Mark.

(Be aware that Luke quotes this same teaching from Jesus concerning the end back in ch.

17 of Luke, suggesting, as we have noted with other teachings, that Jesus taught similar things more than one time in various contexts.)

Note that the “surprise” of judgment was for those who ignored the warnings.

And in the context (here and in Luke 17:22-37), those who are being taken by surprise are those who are being judged, not those whom God is saving (like Noah… and later Lot and his family at Sodom and Gomorrah).

So you too must heed the warning!

(Luke 21:34)

Take heed for yourselves - to be on one’s guard, be cautious or wary about, or be alert to.

Do not act as if the day of the Lord (his return and his judgment) will never come, or as if it doesn’t matter how we live in the meantime.

We must realize that he is certainly coming and that he will bring universal judgment.

See the reminder in v. 35 that this conclusive tribulation and the cosmic signs and the return of Christ and the final judgment—that end is universally applicable to “all who dwell on the face of the earth.”

But it will only be a complete surprise, like a sudden “trap” (v.

34b) to those who are living like the cares of this world weigh them down, in the sense of getting caught up in the worldly view that this life is all there is.

The expression of this way of thinking and living, Jesus expresses as a Hendiadys - two words so closely associated that they modify one another, but stated this way in order to be emphatic.

Hearts weighed down by dissipation and drunkenness.

Dissipation is partying to the point of excessive indulgence leading to inebriation and later the hangover; and drunkenness is the inebriated state from consuming too much alcohol.

Here’s the idea: Remember Jesus’ warning in the parable of the Rich fool who just kept storing up things for himself in this life in order that he might just live the good life now?

But look at the conclusion from Jesus: Luke 12:20

Because we do not know precisely when these last days will come, and because even the signs themselves aren’t what change people to submit to Christ, people must heed the warning of judgment against sin, repent, and turn in faith to Christ.

What difference does it make that we don’t know the precise time of his return?

- What’s the difference between knowing room check is Wed and the possibility of room check being any day, so you must always have a clean room?

… Or “I’ll be back to check on your progress in two hours” versus “I could come back at any time to see if you are diligently working the whole time”?

If you knew exactly when Jesus was coming again, how might you be tempted to live until close to that deadline?

Furthermore, then, we who claim to be His followers must be careful not to get caught up in worldliness.

We must “stay awake.”

In other words… What you do know (or at least have now been told) is that Jesus is coming again in power and glory (in full divine authority).

How should you respond and live?

(What we have seen is that) First you should respond in repentance and faith right now.

Submit to Jesus immediately.

And secondly…

Believers of every generation must live ready.

Even before we talk about v. 36, here’s a NT example of how we should live that contrasts the wordly weight of pretending the end isn’t coming:

Heb 12:1-2a

Also take time on your own to go read Eph 4:17ff, which describes how we must no longer live “like the Gentiles do” (here meaning those who behave as if there is no God) “in the futility of their minds […] due to their hardness of heart” (Eph 4:17-18).

Instead, what we have been taught to do in Christ is to put off this “old self” with its “corrupt” and “deceitful desires,” and through spiritual renewal “to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

(Eph 4:21-24)