Luke 21:25-31 | This is the End

Jason Self

The Gospel of Luke • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

Luke 21:25–31

Eschatology

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Transcript

Acknowledge The Riots

Introduce Harvest

The End?

Engage

An unusual Year

This year has been unusual for a a lot of different reasons. Hopefully you have been watching on TV and not experiencing first hand the chaos going on in many of the cities in our country. I have been watching the news coverage of protests, riots, and looting.

This is NOT the end

A few weeks ago I presented a message from the beginning of this chapter entitled “This is not the End”. That statement applies to the current difficulties we are experiencing as a city and as a country. But as we turn our attention to Luke 21 and start in v26, that story changes.

This IS the end

The title of today’s message is “This is the end” And it is going to be a little different than what you may have come to expect

In response to disciples

Most of the chapter in Luke 21 is the result of a question we find in early on:

Luke 21:7 KJV 1900

And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?

Beauty and Destruction of Temple

Jesus had begun this discussion by responding to a statement about the beauty of the temple. He spoke of the temples destruction and obviously the disciples wanted some information about how this would happen and how they could know these things were imminent.

Our Passage

Let’s take a look at our passage today in

Luke 21:25–31 KJV 1900

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.

Pray

The coming Judgment

Tension

Judgment of Israel to Judgment of World

As we come to verse 25 their is a change. From verse 5-24 the subject is the judgement of Israel, but from 25 onward we find a shift to the judgment of the entire world. This is indicated by what we find in

Luke 21:24 KJV 1900

And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Until the times be fulfilled

That phrase “until the times of Gentiles be fulfilled” marks the shift in the narrative. We obviously live in an age where the gospel of Christ is being moved forward, by gentiles. We certainly see some fantastic Jewish people moving forward the gospel, Ray Comfort immediately comes to mind. But that is the exception not the rule.

Rejecting Christ

But even as Israel, the chosen people of God rejected Christ and were judged accordingly, the entire world once this time has fulfilled will also be judged for their rejection of our Lord, the second person of the Godhead.

Chaos in the world

So as we view the events of the world around us: Coronavirus, Protests, Riots, International Tensions, and the tanking of morality in our culture. It is easy for us to decide that this is the end, and the Lord will return.

Do we have scripture

Matthew 24:6–8 KJV 1900

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Deciding on the end

Kirk Cameron in Monumental

Kirk Cameron in his movie Monumental made a statement that has impacted me in this thinking:

“Everybody’s telling me the world’s going to hell,” “To top it off, I have friends in church that tell me that the worse things get, the better it really is, because it means the end is near. Don’t worry that it’s going to hell … the whole thing is going to burn. Really? Because I have kids in this world and I want a great future for them.”

Wouldn’t it be better with more time?

weather we are speaking about our Children or our friends or those in neighborhoods, wouldn’t we be better off hoping that God still has some time left in his calendar for them to come to Christ?

Sweet and Bitter in Revelation

I think this is what John is picturing in

Revelation 10:9 KJV 1900

And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.

At first when we taste of prophecy and the things to come. We we consider the great victory of our Lord, and things being finally put right. and it’s a sweet taste. But once we swallow that down, and start to digest the reality of things.

It will be bad for some that we love

We are faced with the truth that people are going to die, people are going to suffer, and souls will have no final opportunity to confess the Lord before they head into eternity. And though we look forward to the Lord’s coming, the truth is that it carries with it a bitter sweet reality.

It’s going to get rough

Application

Bad Signs

We should though be realistic about the extreme nature of the signs preceeding the Lord’s return. Look with me again back in

Luke 21:25–26 KJV 1900

Illustration from MacArthur

John MacArthur in his commentary on this passages makes reference to a book Earth in Upheaval by the author Immanuel Velikovsky. In that book, the author describes what he thinks would be the case if a heavenly body caused the earth to tilt on it’s axis. This is the picture he paints:

At that moment an earthquake would make the globe shudder. Air and water would continue to move through inertia; hurricanes would sweep the earth and the seas would rush over continents carrying gravel and sand and marine animals, and casing them on the land. Heat would flow from fissures in the ruptured ground and cover vast areas. Mountains would spring up form the plains and would travel and climb on the shoulders of other mountains, causing faults and rifts. Lakes would be tilted and emptied, rivers would change their bed; large land areas with all their inhabitants would slip under the sea. Forests would burn and the hurricanes and wild seas would wrest them from the ground on which they grew and pile them, branch and root in huge heaps. Seas would turn into deserts, their waters rolling away.

Worse than our current situation

We have complained about the unpredictable circumstances that have marked this year, but compared to Velikovsy’s vision it doesn’t compare. And this lines up remarkably with the disaster Jesus describes concerning the events directly preceeding his return.

Scared to Death

This will get so bad that in v26 the circumstances will cause men to die from fear. And this is something we have on the record as happening.

Back in 2010 a 26 year old woman was stuck in an elevator during a blackout. She had a panic attack in the elevator and by the time paramedics had gotten to her only 30 minutes later she was literally dead from fear. People can be so overwhelmed by fear and their body can release so much adrenaline due to their fight or flight instinct that it causes them to have a heart attack. It is extremely rare that this happens, but in the time preceeding the Lord’s return it will be common place enough to part of the Lord’s description of events.

Not a new teaching

The result is staggering. Jesus explaining this to his disciples isn’t the first mention of these events unfolding, in fact there are several places in both the Old and New Testament that prophecy these events.

Isaiah 13:12 KJV 1900

I will make a man more precious than fine gold; Even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

What is precious

That word precious we typically think of as something that is valuable. We call children precious and because of that I think it is easy for us to miss the first meaning. Precious refers to scarcity. The reason that precious metals are precious is because they aren’t found in abundance. If Gold were as abundant as iron, it wouldn’t cost so much and be so prized. What our Bible says is that in that time the population of earth will be so reduced that men will as scarce as rare precious metals.

Inspiration

Don’t like teaching prophecy

To be honest, I don’t like teaching on end times prophecy. If I weren’t committed to exegetical, verse by verse preaching I would probably avoid it as much as possible.

Lot’s of options

When it come to Eschatology, the study of the end times. There are a ton of proposed understandings of how things unfold. What is most commonly held to in the US today is basically what has been widely accepted in the US and Great Britain for the last couple of hundred years. That is the pre-millennial pre-tribulation view. Really, the idea that Jesus will return prior to his reign on earth for 1000 years has been the concensus of Christianity for most of Christian history.

Why make this an issue

I can’t for the life of me understand why some churches would be so adamant about their view on a pre tribulation rapture that they would make it a bold print, permanent statement on their marquee.

I will be wrong

This is one of those subjects that when I am looking back at these events instead of forward to them I am perfectly fine with, and expect I am going to have a lot of things in my understanding corrected.

Some things are clear

But what I can tell, I can only tell from scripture and it is this. I think it is debatable as to what exactly is the event When we say that we will know the season, it won’t be something that we will be left scratching our heads over. We aren’t going to have Christians debating, is this the season or is this not the season. We are going to be seeing people dying from fear and nations perplexed as to what to do.

Application

The upside

This is all kind of bleak isn’t it. But let’s focus on this point Jesus makes at the end of v28

Luke 21:28 KJV 1900

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

Your redemption draweth nigh. That word redemption is one of my favorite words. ἀπολύτρωσις apolytrosis. It means to purchase the freedom of a slave.

This puts some context to

Ephesians 4:30 KJV 1900

And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Sealed

This idea that we are sealed unto the day of redemption. We don’t experience the fullness of our salvation yet today. We get saved and we still live in the same fallen world and we still have the same fallen body and we unfortunately a lot of the same things that tempted us before will continue to tempt us. The thing that has changed is our heart, and a longing for that day when we are made completely free of sin. When we are fully redeemed. For now though we are sealed.

Pharmaceutical Vault

I have been inside a facility that manufacturers very expensive pharmaceuticals also very narcotic pharmaceutical. At the end of the day they put everything in a giant vault. This vault had at least a 20ft tall impenetrable door. And then they seal that door shut. I can’t imagine anything that could breach that door. At this facility, when everyone goes home for the day, there isn’t any concern about someone coming in the night and robbing the place. Their highly valued items have been sealed behind that giant vault door.

We are Sealed

For you and I as Christians, if we have given our lives to Christ, we are sealed. Secured behind an impenetrable savior, because you are highly valued by God. And when we see our world being turned upside down, even if it is truly the end of the time. We can know that at the end of the day, we have our time of redemption to look forward to.

Having trouble make sense of it all, you can rest in Christ’s redemption. If it is good for the end of time, it is good for this small matter in comparison

Christ is going to return, will time run out for you

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