The End of the Age - Signs

We’ve been in our study of the “End of the Age” for a few weeks now, and all of our work so far has been to build a context for what Jesus says in Mark 13. We started by looking at the great prophecies of Daniel that foretold God’s timeline for the End of the Age. We looked at Daniel 2 and 7, which were prophecies of four empires (Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome). The Lord promised that he would use those empires to judge Israel, but also to protect them, until the coming of the Messiah. When the Messiah comes, he will destroy the last kingdom, Rome, and his kingdom will grow to fill the whole world. Then, we studied Daniel 9, which gave us a timeline for all of this. God gave us 490 years to bring an end to the Old Covenant and usher in a new covenant through the Messiah. Last week, we considered Romans 9-11 and the true nature of God’s chosen people. We saw that Israel was a part of God’s covenant of grace, which Paul envisioned as an olive tree. The root of that tree was not Abraham, but Christ. So, God is now grafting Gentiles into that same tree of life, and all who come to Christ by faith are children of the promise.

With all of that background, we can now go back to Mark 13. Today, we start with Mark 13:1-13, as we consider the signs of the end of the age. Let’s read that together. From this text, see three points: The Season, the Signs, and the Stand.

First, from verses 1-4, see the Season. Mark introduces this teaching of Jesus by locating him in two places: the temple and the mount of Olives. These two locations are important and serve to set the scene. Jesus has been teaching in the temple since he entered it on the first day of the week to the happy shouts of the crowds. He entered the temple, cleared out the money changers, and set up shop, teaching for the remainder of the week. The temple is where the religious leaders set their traps for Jesus, and where Jesus made them look like fools. It is also where Jesus offered his warnings against the scribes and extoled the heart-felt righteousness of the widow who gave her last penny. I remind you of all of this, because so far, there has been very little good that has come out of the temple that was not done by Jesus or one of his followers. 

Now, Jesus leaves the temple for the last time prior to his crucifixion, and the last thing he does is pronounce a judgment on it. Mark tells us, as Jesus was leaving the temple, his disciples could not help but admire its grandeur. They called on Jesus to acknowledge the greatness of the temple. But, instead of admiring it with them, Jesus prophesies of destruction: “There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” This statement greatly troubles his disciples, so when they make it back to their basecamp on the mount of Olives, they ask Jesus, “when will these things be and what will be their sign?” These two questions are what the rest of Mark 13 is devoted to answering. We have to acknowledge that up front, because Mark 13, and its parallels in Matt. 24 and Luke 21, have been read to refer to the end of the world, but that is not what they prophesy of. There are some important keys that show us that Jesus is speaking of the destruction of the temple and the scattering of the Jewish people, not a set of events at the end of time. First of all, as I mentioned just now, what Jesus says here is in answer to the question of when the temple will be destroyed. Second, at the end of the chapter, Jesus gives us another timeframe for these prophecies. In verse 30, he says, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” A generation was understood to be forty years, and Jesus said these words in 30 AD, which means that the generation would come to a close in 70 AD – the year the temple and city of Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans. Finally, Jesus repeatedly uses the second-person pronoun, “you”, to speak of all the things to watch for. He tells the disciples, “Don’t let anyone lead YOU astray, when YOU here of wars, be on YOUR guard.” Remember, he is answering the direct question of four of his disciples in a private setting. This is not a great sermon preached from a mountaintop. This is a precise warning to his disciples of what will happen within their generation.

With that, consider my second point: the Signs, from verses 5-12. The whole of the chapter is devoted to giving the disciples the signs leading up to the destruction of the temple, but there are five signs that he gives in this passage. First, he gives the sign of False-Christs. In verses 5 and 6, Jesus warns his disciples not to be led astray by men who will claim to be the Messiah. In Matthew’s account, Jesus explicitly warns, to beware of men who say, “I am the Christ.” Leading up to the destruction of the temple, there were numerous false-Messiahs. Theudus rose up in AD 44 claiming to be a prophet. In AD 66, Menahem Ben Judas seized Herod’s armory at Masada and then marched on Jerusalem. Josephus says that he even wore the robes of a king as he did this. Simon Bar Giora styled himself as a king during the siege on Jerusalem. Josephus says that, while Rome mounted their final assault, there were a great number of false prophets who promised that the city would soon be delivered by God.

Second, Jesus gives the sign of fomenting conflicts. He says that the disciples will “hear of wars and rumors of wars… nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.” This too happened leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. In 58 AD, the Roman-Parthian war broke out. In AD 60 there was a massive revolt against Rome in Britain. In 66, there were revolts by both the Jews and the Greeks. And, this all escalated to the Roman civil war of AD 69, when Galba and his troops marched on Rome, Nero committed suicide, and the “year of the four emperors” almost ended the Roman Empire.

Third, Jesus gives the sign of frightening calamities. At the end of verse 8 he warns of earthquakes and famines. Again, these all happened leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. In Acts 11, we read of the famine of Claudius. In 60 AD, Laodicea was completely destroyed by an earthquake, and that was followed in 62 AD by the infamous volcanic eruption at Pompeii.

Fourth, in verse 9, Jesus gives the sign of fearful challenges. He warns that his disciples will be persecuted for their witness to Christ. They will be delivered to councils, beaten in synagogues, and prosecuted by government officials. This progression of persecution that Jesus gives follows precisely the developments in the book of Acts. In Acts 4, Peter and John are hauled before the Jewish council. In Acts 14, Paul enters a synagogue, and they drive him out and stone him. In Acts 24, Paul goes before Felix, the Roman governor, and the book of Acts ends with Paul on his way to Rome to appeal to Caesar. 

Finally, in verse 10, we have one hopeful sign – the sign of a full call of the Gospel. Jesus says that the gospel will first be proclaimed to all nations. Now, this sign is where many futurist interpreters of prophecy will object to my reading. They will say, “you see preacher, that has not happened yet.” If we assume that “all nations” means every nation that exists today, then this is a fair objection. But, as I’ve said before, we have to understand prophecy in its biblical context. What did the disciples understand to be “all nations”? In Genesis 10:32, it says, “these are the clans of the sons of Noah… in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.” Remember the story of the Tower of Babel, from Genesis 11. All people were gathered in one place, and they all had one language. They intended to build a tower that they might worship themselves and rebel against God’s command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. God judged this rebellion by confusing their languages so that they were scattered. That judgment sent the world into darkness, so that they pursued false gods. Abraham, alone, was chosen by God to carry on true worship. So, the great question of the OT is how God would bring all nations to himself. Then, in Acts 2:5, as the Spirit of God descended on the disciples of Jesus, we read, “Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.” The disciples rush out, full of the Spirit, and they preach, and as they do, the crowd hears them in their native languages. Luke goes on to tell us where they are from, and the nations he lists out are the nations of Genesis 10, the descendants of the sons of Noah. So, at Pentecost, the Gospel was proclaimed to all nations.

We know that the disciples understood it this way, because Paul understood it this way. Paul tells the Romans, in Rom. 1:8, “Your faith is proclaimed in all the world.” In Rom. 10:18 he says, “their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” In Col. 1:23, Paul writes, “The gospel… has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven…”. Now, at the time Paul wrote these things, Nepal had not heard the Gospel. China had not been reached. So, how could Paul say the Gospel had been proclaimed to all creation when those nations had not been reached? He could say this because neither he nor Jesus meant every last person in every last 21^st century nation must hear the Gospel before the end will come. He meant a very specific group of nations – those nations that represented the scattering of Noah’s sons.

So, now that we’ve seen these five signs, consider my last point, the stand, from verse 13. After giving all of these signs, Jesus calls his disciples to stand. He says, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” This statement has both a historical and an ongoing dimension to it. First, historically speaking, there were many disciples who endured to the end, but there were also those who fell away. Ananias and Sapphira sought to use the church to build their reputation, and they were both killed by the Holy Spirit as they offered their gifts. Hebrews warns Jewish believers against making a commitment to Christ and then turning back to Judaism. 1 John warns of false teachers (he calls Antichrists) who will rise up and deceive many. Leading up to the destruction of the temple, there were many who committed to Christ and then turned away when the persecution became unbearable. Those who gave lip service to Christ, who put their hand to the plow and looked back, were not saved. Only those who endured where saved.

But, this call to endurance is not just for Peter, James, John, and Andrew. All Christians are called to endure. Heb. 12:1-2 says, “Let us run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus.” A true disciple of Christ is one who endures to the end. True saving faith is a faith that abides in Christ to the end. Even though the prophecies of Mark 13 were fulfilled in the generation of the disciples, much of what they faced we still face today. Every generation of believers faces false teachers who rise up and claim to be the Christ. Every generation faces war and calamity. Every generation faces persecution by the hands of our culture and government. The call of endurance is as much our call as it was that of the disciples. Like the false-christs who rose up in the 1^st century, we too can be led astray by those who claim the authority of God, but lack his power. There are heretics who claim to have a new revelation. There are religious and political leaders who claim to have the answer to all our problems.

We also live in an era of endless war and disaster. Nothing brings despair like war and natural disaster. But, Jesus warned his disciples not to be distracted by these calamities. They might seem like world-ending events, but they were not the end. God was still in control. We would do good to remember that in the midst of our own trials.

Finally, we too face persecutions. There are men who are hauled to court for refusing to bake cakes for gay weddings. There are churches that are attacked because deranged men hate Christ. There are young men who are shot while speaking boldly about their faith. Yet, in all of this, we are called to endure, resting in the knowledge that God is in control of it all. These prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem give us that confidence. Even for all its horrors, God purposed it all. God purposes all that we face, and he causes it all for our good and his glory. So, may we endure to the end with the confidence that God is in control.