End Time Chatter #2 Mark 13
Is the end near? Is the return of Jesus imminent? As things go
from bad to worse End Time Chatter is once again propagating throughout the
Church. The chatter always increases in
times of cultural stress, social upheaval, and uncertainty about the near
future.
Within the doctrines of orthodox Christian
churches, you will find teaching about the return of Jesus. In our Church of
the Nazarene our belief is stated:
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will
come again; that we who are alive at His coming shall not precede them that are
asleep in Christ Jesus; but that, if we are abiding in Him, we shall be caught
up with the risen saints to meet the Lord in the air, so that we shall ever be
with the Lord.
This is followed by nine scriptural
references: Matthew 25:31-46; John 14:1-3;
Acts 1:9-11; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Titus 2:11-14;
Hebrews 9:26-28; 2 Peter 3:3-15; and Revelation 1:7-8; 22:7-20.
Disciples of Jesus believe that Jesus will
come again because He said He would.
John 14:2-3 (MSG)
There is plenty of room for you in my
Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to
get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll
come back and get you so you can live where I live.
So, faith informs us that Jesus is coming
again.
Theologians tell us that at His first
advent, His incarnation, Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom of God on Earth. Jesus got things moving in the direction of
making all things the way God intended, a “re-Edening” of Creation. At His second coming, Jesus will consummate
the Kingdom of God on Earth; Jesus will return to complete what He started.
Revelation 21:3 (MSG)
I heard a voice thunder from the Throne:
"Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men
and women!
Timelines and graphs, discerning the signs
of the times and setting dates, are wonderful speculation. Unfortunately, in the history of the Church,
such speculations have always been wrong. Prophetic accuracy is zero. Even when the end-time prophet or teacher
supports every one of their reasons upon scripture, they have been wrong. [List of dates predicted for apocalyptic
events - Wikipedia]
Peter, James, John, and Andrew pull Jesus to
the side and ask when is all this going to happen. When will you tear down and rebuild the
Temple? When will you bring the Kingdom
in full? The first thing Jesus answers is: “Watch out for doomsday deceivers”
(Mark 13:5). “They will deceive a lot of
people” (Mark 13:6). Then Jesus makes a
list of things, wars, and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, incivility,
persecution, and murder. Somehow we miss
that Jesus calls all this “routine history” not signs of the end.
Mark 13:7 (NIV)
Such things must happen, but the end is
still to come.
It is a wise course of action to be
skeptical of the end-time prophets and teachers that hype the signs of the
times, especially when there is a book to be bought and a conference honorarium
to be gained.
The message in the Olivet Discourse as
recorded by Mark is that living life as a follower of Jesus is going to be
difficult. This is not meant to be a
description of future history. Rather it
is a warning for disciples to stay alert in the face of threats, persecutions,
upheavals, dangers, and uncertainties life presents. Staying alert means to
continue to do the work that you have been gifted to do, using your talents and
abilities to spread the teachings of Jesus, so that as many as possible of the
people you know receive the invitation and enter into the Kingdom.
In Marks's account, we can divide Jesus’
preaching into two major sections. The
first is contained between verses 5-23 in which disciples are warned against
four deceptive signs: false prophets, wars, and natural disasters are the first
group followed by persecutions, followed by a desolating sacrilege, and
culminating in false Christs. (H.Ray Dunning, The Second Coming, p 57.) Jesus tells us what to do in such times:
Mark 13:13 (MSG)
There's no telling who will hate you because
of me. "Stay with it—that's what is required. Stay with it to the end. You
won't be sorry; you'll be saved.
Those deceptive signs have always happened
in history and seem to be happening again right now, but they are not
apocalyptic signs, they are always happening (Dunning, p.58).
Mark 13:9 tells the disciples that they will
be rejected from the Synagogues. This of course happened. Believers would be brought before authorities
and testify. This happened as recorded in Acts.
Mark 13:10 Jesus says before the end the gospel would be preached to all
nations. Now we are talking about all
the nations known at the time, which is the Roman empire. This happened. Mark 13:12-13 Christians were
banned, enslaved, put to death, and betrayed to authorities by family members. This happened.
Let’s take a closer look at one example of a
sign that happened but did not bring the end times to a close. Jesus says: “But be ready to run for it when
you see the monster of desecration set up where it should never be.” Then there
is a parenthetical statement inserted by the author that means “note to the
reader.” Now scholars tell us that the
note to the reader is to the person who has read the book of Daniel and knows
of the prophecy concerning the abomination that causes desolation.
Daniel 11:31 (NIV)
"His armed forces will rise up to
desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they
will set up the abomination that causes desolation.
A student of biblical history will point out
that the Temple was desecrated around 168 BC.
In a writing few protestants read called 1 & 2 Maccabees, we have
the historical account of Antiochus Epiphanies desecrating the Temple. [Hanukkah and the Desecration of the Temple
Chosen People Ministries ]
The writers of 1 Maccabees 1:54 understood Antichus actions to be a fulfillment
of the Daniel prophecy. This incident incited
the Jews to a rebellion called the Maccabean Revolt.
About 100 years later in 63 BC Roman General
Pompey the Great profaned the Temple by entering the Holy of Holies. 80 years
or so after in AD 40, Emperor Caligula wanted his statue set up in the temple.
[Jewish peasants block construction of statue
of Gaius Caligula in Galilee, 40 CE | Global Nonviolent Action Database
(swarthmore.edu)] The
orders were canceled when the Emperor was assassinated.
In Jesus’ lifetime, Pilate was determined to
set up the Empire’s standards in the temple. [Master: The Ecole Initiative: Pontius Pilate
(middlebury.edu)] As we learned last time around 66-70 AD the
Roman General Titus did a similar thing by setting up the Legion standard in
the Holy of Holies and sacrificing a pig on the altar desecrating the
Temple. [Why Historians Believe Titus Sacrificed a
Pig to the Ensigns in the Temple in A.D. 70. | Revelation Revolution] There is also recorded that after the fall
of Jerusalem Titus “ordered a victorious sacrifice near the eastern gate of the
Temple. One of the animals burned there, which was the most insulting and
blasphemous of all, was a pig” (The Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE: A Story of
Roman Revenge (warfarehistorynetwork.com)). These two accounts may
be of the same event.
If there is a prediction of the future it is
here, it was an immediate warning to Jesus’ followers. In the parallel passage found in Luke we
read:
Luke 21:20-21 (NIV)
When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by
armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in
Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in
the country not enter the city.
Mark wants the reader to know that Jesus was
telling His disciples to get out of Jerusalem when they see this happening because
a disaster is going to fall on the City of God. The Romans eventually destroy
the Temple and the City walls.
There is a tradition that many Christians
fled to Pella. [ The Amazing Christian Escape from the A.D.
70 Destruction of Jerusalem - DocsLib) ]Pella is about 75 miles north of Jerusalem in the country
called Jordan. This area is also
referred to as the Decapolis, and in one of those 10 cities, Jesus cast out a
legion of demons from a wild man into a swine heard. [ Matt. 8:28-34; Mark
5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39 ] There is more than one understanding of this exorcism,
which we will save for some other time.
[ “The whole body, however, of the church at
Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of
approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a
certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella.” Ecclesiastical History, tr. C.
F. Crusè, 3d ed., in Greek Ecclesiastical Historians, 6 vols. (London: Samuel
Bagster and Sons, 1842), p. 110 (3:5) ]
The end-time prophets proclaim that for Jesus’
return to happen, the Temple must be rebuilt so that anti-Christ can decorate
it with his abomination again. According
to these teachers, the desecration of the new temple will occur halfway through
the Great Tribulation.
An understanding of “let the reader beware”
more aligned with the theme of the Discourse is for believers to stay faithful
to the Kingdom even if the symbol of nationalistic identity and intuitional
religion collapses (Dunning, p 58).
Mark 13:19-20 informs us that the Roman sack
of Jerusalem will be days of unequaled distress. The Romans surrounded the city, it was a
summer of starvation. The Temple was set on fire. “As the flames shot into the air the Jews
sent up a cry that matched the calamity and dashed to the rescue, with no
thought now of saving their lives or husbanding their strength; for that which
they had guarded so devotedly was disappearing before their eyes,” wrote the
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. [ The Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE: A Story of
Roman Revenge (warfarehistorynetwork.com) ] Josephus reported that starvation was widespread and over a
million Jews were slaughtered and 100,000 enslaved. A majority of those killed were
non-combatants. [ Josephus, Wars of the
Jews, 6:9:3] The city was abandoned for
about 50 years.
Is the abomination that causes desolation a
future event? Is the desecration a historical event? Is it a historical event that foreshadows a
future event? You get to decide. What is being advocated in this teaching is
that if this passage is prophetic the only word of prophecy is for the fleeing
of Jerusalem, the rest are not signs of the imminent return of Jesus rather
they are routine history.
[One should also take into account when the
gospels were written and to the audience, they were written for. It is possible that Mark, the first account
written, can be dated after AD 70 ]
If Mark 13:1-23 is routine history what’s
the message for us today?
“Watch out that no one deceives you…” “These
are the beginning of birth pains.” “You
must be on your guard.” “…he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” “So be
on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.” (Mark 13:5, 8, 9, 13, and 23 (NIV). What has been told, is the destruction of the
Temple. Jesus is warning his followers
to be on guard for the deceivers, the fancy fakes, the false teachers, and the
lying preachers who like the false prophets of old predicted that everything
was going to be alright, that God would not allow a foreign power to destroy
His city.
For us today, our task as a follower of
Jesus is to continue his mission:
“to preach the Message of good news to the
poor, … announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set
the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God's year to act!’”
(Luke 4:18-19 (MSG)
Matthew 28:19-20 (MSG)
Go out and train everyone you meet, far and
near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have
commanded you.
You will carry out your task in a world of
chaos. There are no easy streets when
you are living for Jesus. Life will be difficult and added to the difficulty,
you will face persecution. Amid the
social upheaval, people need the good news of the gospel. Your task is to proclaim Jesus with words and
deeds of love. You will find comfort and
power in the hope of Jesus' imminent return. In the end, whenever that happens
you will find that you have been saved.
We will pick up verses 24-37 of Mark’s
Olivet Discourse next time.
http://www.semperreformanda.com/theology/bibliology/the-ninety-five-theses-against-dispensationalism/
Messiahs will arise and claim to be The One. Jewish historian Josephus mentions a Samaritan, Theudas, the sons of Judas of Galilee, the “Egyptian” and various other “imposters.” Whether they claimed to be the Messiah or prophets, they said of themselves that they were divinely inspired and empowered (France, p. 902).
Could they deceive many?
Gamaliel’s speech (he was Saul / Paul’s mentor):
For some time ago Theudas, claiming to be somebody,
followed by about 400 men, was killed, and everyone who was convinced by him
was dispersed and came to nothing. 37 After this Judas the Galilean during the
census led the people in a revolt after him. He too was destroyed, and everyone
who was convinced by him was scattered. (Acts 5:36-37)
Paul was arrested, and the centurion asked him:
37 When they were about to take him into the barracks,
Paul said to the commander, “If it is permitted to me to say something to you?”
He said, “Do you know Greek? 38 Then you are not the Egyptian who ignited a
revolt and led four thousand men of the Assassins into the desert some time
ago?” (Acts 21:37-38)
False prophets will arise in the Messianic communities.
Their teachings will lead many astray. Here is Paul’s description of bad
teachers and false prophets in Ephesus, Asia Minor:
29 I know that after my departure ferocious wolves will
come in to your midst, not sparing the flock. 30 And from among yourselves men
will arise, speaking seductive things so as to draw the disciples away for
themselves. 31 Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years, night and
day, I did not stop warning each one of you with tears. (Acts 20:29-31) ]
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