12/1/19 Mark 13:24-37 “Is This the Second Coming?”

29 Nov 12/1/19 Mark 13:24-37 “Is This the Second Coming?”

12/1/19  Mark 13:24-37      “Is This the Second Coming?”

It always seems a little different to preach on this Sunday which is the first Sunday of Advent and by the way it’s also the first Sunday of the Christian year.  Normally when we were still serving churches this was the Sunday that we decorated the church.  We had a program where we would sing Christmas carols and read Scripture.  Then we would stop here and there and put up the decorations.  It was really a fun service and the church looked totally different at the end than at the beginning of the service.  I always enjoyed that service and it wasn’t because I didn’t have to preach.  It was just a great service that didn’t need to be cluttered with my talking.  Anyway this is the first Sunday of Advent.  Advent in this sense means the looking forward to the coming of Jesus.  What we usually like to think here is that we are looking forward to Jesus coming at Christmas as a baby.  And this is ok.  Christmas is a great holiday and I don’t want to take anything away from it.  However, what we really mean with Advent is we are anxiously waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ.  That is what we will look at today as we listen for direction from the Gospel writer, Mark.  Let’s see if we can be ready.

Billy Graham often told this story about a little boy named Paul Haley and our being ready to meet our maker.  Paul was 6 years old and dying of cancer. The one thing he wanted more than anything else was to meet the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower.  One day, quite unexpectedly, Eisenhower decided that he was going to visit this boy.  I don’t know the specifics of how this worked but they jumped in the presidential limousine and drove to the boy’s house.  The President got there and simply walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.  The boy’s father answered the door and said to the neatly dressed stranger, “Can I help you?”

Suddenly, a little boy appeared between his father’s legs, peering up at the stranger’s face. “Yes, I’m Dwight Eisenhower and I’d like to meet your son.” The little boy scampered out to the limo and the president showed him the car and allowed him to sit in it. They parted with a handshake and a hug. All the while, the dad, Donald Haley stood in the doorway awestruck. His neighbors talked about it for years.  Donald Haley often talked about how unprepared he was to meet the president of the United States. He was standing there in old jeans and a dirty tee-shirt as the most important man in the world shook his hand. If he had only known he could have been prepared.

Now President Trump is not the most important person in the universe for us Christians nor is any other president for that matter.  Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is the most important and some day He will stop by and take us to live in a wondrous place called heaven.  It is our job to be ready to meet the most important person in the universe.  We know about it and we have to be ready.

The first thing I would like to talk about today is what is going to happen at the end is far, far beyond our imagination.  Right before this Jesus told us of all the things that must happen before He can come again.  This is the part where brother will be against brother.  Christians will be persecuted everywhere.  There will be the anti-Christ and all his minions.  This will be a bleak time.

Many people feel that we have already reached this time.  We have many earthquakes, volcanoes, and other natural disasters around the globe.  The anti-Christ could be coming from many places.  As a world, we have become totally immoral.  In our own country we kill our unborn babies.  We go against everything in the Bible that we don’t agree with.  We have set ourselves up to be gods.  There are many, many things wrong with our world that go against what Jesus has to say.

However, I don’t feel that we are quite ready for the final chapter.  So far I only see things happening as usual.  I don’t think that there are that many more natural disasters than at any other time.  In our modern world, we just hear about them as newscasts come instantaneously from around the world.  We have many people who could have filled the anti-Christ role but haven’t.  Many of the signs are there but I don’t think we are quite ready yet.  I might be wrong and we could be gone tomorrow but I don’t think so.

Here is one of the reasons I think like this.  I’m reading a series by Rick Renner where he studies the original language and tries to put it into our perspective.  From what I can gather, many of the passages in the New Testament have been watered down over the centuries.  I don’t think this is all on purpose although some of it sure is.  The problem comes in translating into English.  We really don’t have words for a lot of things they talk about in the Bible.  Love is one example where we have one word and they had four.

Anyway, I have found that our modern translations are really quite calm and subdued compared to the original language.  For example, we have a nice story where Jesus went to the cross on Good Friday.  In the original language, what Jesus went through was far beyond what we can think about as barbarous!  He was beaten and shredded almost to a pulp.  Mostly I have found that the original language is far more descriptive and barbaric than our English.

And that is true for most of the New Testament.  However, when we come to this chapter, there isn’t much to clear up as it seems to be pretty close to our interpretation.  So all these things will happen even or especially when we cannot begin to understand them.  So just keep this in mind that I might not be nearly graphic enough in my descriptions of this.  What is about to happen is something that we cannot even come close to imagining.

The first thing we read about today is that the sun will be darkened.  Today most people will scoff at this but it will happen because this is Jesus talking.  It will be darkened and the moon will no longer give light.  It’s pretty hard to imagine.  The stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.  It sounds to me that Jesus will put out the lights.  Jesus says, “Boom! Boom!  Out go the lights!”  I don’t know how that will work because I cannot imagine no light.  All I can say is that I hope the tribulation comes before all this happens as many interpret the writings like this.  Also remember, this is at the very end, after the 7 years of basically hell on earth.

So far we have seen that it will be far beyond our imaginations and also it will be far worse than anything we can think would happen.  Then Jesus tells us to be watching.  As a matter of fact that is the theme that runs through this whole section.  He tells us here and in other places, because it’s so important, to be ready.  We do not know when He is coming.  As a matter of fact the only one who knows is God Himself.  Jesus doesn’t know and the Holy Spirit doesn’t know.

Some of you may know that I don’t believe too much in all these people who run around saying the end is now.  I usually don’t preach on Revelations because of this but the last time I said this when I was preaching, I turned a one Sunday sermon in Revelation into a 3 week mini-series.  I couldn’t leave it undone.  I had to tell the whole truth.  Anyway I don’t go too much for the end times stuff because we have a job to do.  Our job isn’t to sit around in Bible studies or classes talking about all the signs that have been fulfilled.  Oh, it’s good information but it’s not our job.

Our job as we are waiting, watching and longing with anticipation for the coming events that Jesus talks about is to make new Christians in any way possible.  I would guess that there aren’t many of you who can just talk to someone about Jesus and their eternal salvation and that is ok.  We weren’t all made to be evangelists.  But if you study the Bible at all you know that each one of us has been given, blessed with at least one gift from God.  One of the places you can find some of these is in 1 Corinthians 12.  There are other places also.  But it’s important that you realize what your gift is.  Jesus doesn’t give your gifts so that you can flaunt them, be proud of them, or hide them.  He gave you at least one gift, maybe more, so that you could go into the world and spread His great word.

Therefore if you have been given the gift of wisdom, then use your wisdom in the name of Jesus Christ.  The same can be said of knowledge or faith or any of the other gifts.  Then you use them use them in the name of Jesus.  It isn’t that hard to do if you are gifted in that area.  If you are gifted in helping, then thank Jesus for the opportunities to help.  And when you get done, then thank Him again out loud.  We are a part of the biggest and best religion in the world and most of the time we walk around like we are ashamed of Jesus.  We need to begin to shout out His name where ever we go and during and after whatever we do.

Now there maybe some of you who ask a question like this.  Why does God do this?  Why in the world is He going to make things so terrible?  These are great questions.  The simple answer is that He does this because of His love for us, those who believe in Him.  To help you understand that answer a little better we need to look at what heaven or our after life will be like.

You are going to go one of two places.  Where you go is totally your choice.  God is not making you go anywhere.  I’m not going to go into what the bad place is like except to say that it will be far, far worse than we can imagine.  Heaven, however, is far, far, better than what we can imagine.  We will be with all the good people from the beginning of time.  We can talk and we can learn.  The streets will be made of gold and the gates of pearls.  There will be no darkness.  When my dad died, I was with him and Jesus gave me a glimpse of what it will be like.  It was gloriously bright with light everywhere.  There were no shadows so it was really hard for me to discern where something stopped and where the next object began.  That was because there were no shadows so there went my depth perception as we know it in this world.   It was the happiest, biggest, grandest place I have ever seen.  Jesus is there and talking to you at any time you want.  I cannot describe how wonderful it will be.  This is what is waiting for you.  And the best part of all this is that anyone in this world can be assured of continuing on in a blissful eternity if they want.  All you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  This will guarantee your place in heaven.  Not only that but it will also guarantee the best life possible in this world if you just do what He wants you to do.

I want you to think about another reason God does this.  Try to imagine a heaven where everyone we know is there.  Suppose all people went to heaven.  If this happened like some false religions say, then heaven would be no different than here.  All the corruption, crime, death would be in heaven.  God has told us that this isn’t so.  Therefore, He had to do something so that heaven would be a perfect place.  And what He did was deny anything bad from coming to heaven.  He does this because He loves us so.  When He says that He went ahead and made a perfect place for you to spend eternity, He means every word of it.  Don’t believe all these other religions that tell you anything differently.

Tony Searles tells us, according to his research a few years ago, that 10% of church members cannot be found, 20% of church members never attend church, 25% admit that they never pray, 35% admit that they do not read their Bibles, 40% admit that they never contribute to the church, tithe or offering, 60% never give to missions, 70% never assume responsibility within the church, 85% never invite anyone to church, 95 % have never won anyone to Christ, BUT! 100% expect to go to heaven!

The reason that I bring this up is to show you where you might be at and just how easy it is to follow Jesus.  None of these things are hard to do except maybe leading someone to Christ.  Again just rely on your gifts for that.  Don’t worry about all the naysayers who say this is the end times.  When the end times are here, I guarantee that you will know it.  Until then, be ready by helping all you can.  The point is that this is easy.  I want to be able to see all of you when it’s time for us to go to heaven.  Some of you I will meet for the first time and then we will have a celebration, a heavenly celebration.

As goofy as our future times may be, focus on Jesus as much as you can.  As we prepare the way for His second coming, remember His first coming so many centuries before as He came to a stable in Bethlehem.  He did all of this because He loves you and has a plan to take care of you.  All you have to do is follow.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.