Peaceful Purpose in Terrible Times
Luke 21:5-24 ·September 29, 2024· Joel Passmore
Part of: Luke
Pastor Joel Passmore preaches on God's Peaceful Purpose in Terrible Times
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So, as a family, we've been on a lot of road trips. Yeah, Nikki says. We've gone up and down the East Coast to South Carolina a whole bunch of times. We've been out west to Tennessee. We've been north to Rhode Island, southeast to Oklahoma and Texas. Once we even, because a flight got canceled, we had to rent a car and drive back from Orlando all the way back from there to here. A lot of driving. Nikki's done even more than me because she grew up in Houston, and her family would come out to the East Coast twice a year and drive it every time.
So, a lot of miles. In our family of four, when we're in the car, when we are about to go someplace or when we're going someplace, one thing we hear a lot is, when will we get there? You know how it is. That question is asked as if arrival time makes the trip go faster, right?
But some questions I can never recall hearing. Maybe Nikki can correct me. I can never recall hearing any of these questions. What will we see along the way? What will the trip be like? What should we do as we go along? We don't hear those questions. When we went out west last summer to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, I knew that we would be doing a lot of driving. A lot of driving. In fact, what did we put on the, like, we rented a car and we put something like 1,800 miles on it.
A lot of driving. It was a new place for all four of us. And I wanted us to focus on the journey rather than on the arrival every day. So every day, as we were starting out, I made a map, kind of, a drawing like this. So it wasn't meant to be precise, as you can tell. It's not to scale. It's not meant to be precise. It's just meant something to show the path that we were on and to create some expectations of what we might see on the way and what they might do.
See the country. Read a book. We're going north. We're going from here to there. We're going to pass these cities along the way. Cheyenne, Laramie. So today in Luke, Jesus is going to describe a big, huge subject. The end times. But rather than focus on an arrival time, he describes what is going to happen along the way and what we should do on the trip. So it's kind of like this map. It's not meant to be precise because he doesn't want to give us an arrival time.
It turns out he can't even give us an arrival time. He wants to tell us this is what it's going to be like. This is what the journey is going to be like in this time. This is what you can and should do in this time. So that's what we're going to approach today in God's word. It's a big passage. Parents, here we go. I know some of you have little kids in here today. This is God's word for us.
One of the things about preaching straight through a book and not skipping around to I just like these three chapters or whatever is that occasionally you bump into passages that you're like, hmm, I might have chosen to skip this one. But the Lord said no. There is a lot of good things in here. It's immensely practical. So hang with me here. Let's dive into God's word. He wants to feed us today. He's got something rich for us today. So let's pay attention to his divinely appointed word for us today.
We can build our lives on it, friends, and we should. This is Luke 21 through verse 5 through verse 24. And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. And they asked him, Teacher, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?
And he said, See that you are not led astray, for many will come in my name, saying, I am he, and the time is at hand. Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once. Then he said to them, Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
But before all this, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it, therefore, in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends.
And some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. And let those who are inside the city depart. And let not those who are out in the country enter it. For these are the days of vengeance to fulfill all that is written.
Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days. For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath upon this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles. Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Lord, it's God's word. Pray with me.
God, give us open ears and soft hearts to listen to you speak through your word. We know that you don't lie. You don't change your mind. And we know that you have given us the spirit. If we are in Christ, Lord, we have the spirit to understand these things. To understand what is essential for us. To follow you faithfully. And that's what we ask for. Lord, teach us, guide us, sanctify us. And most of all, Lord, make yourself preeminent in our minds and in our lives.
So that we treasure you above all else. And we pray this, Jesus, in your name. Peaceful purpose in terrible times. Before Jesus returns, hardship should be expected but can be endured. Before Jesus returns, hardship should be expected but can be endured. So this passage and next week's passage, it's called the Olivet Discourse. Nicknamed the Little Apocalypse. It's Jesus' most extensive speech and talking about the end times. It's a tough one, but it's very practical.
Jesus is discussing the future. So have you ever made an offhand remark that led into this big, significant conversation? You didn't really mean anything by it. But somebody else brought up something else about it. And it just, next thing you know, you're like, how do we get into such a big conversation? That's basically what happens here. The disciples are walking around with Jesus and they're like, some were speaking of the temple. How it was adorned with noble stones and offerings.
In Mark, what they say is, look what wonderful stones and buildings. It's just an offhanded remark. They're admiring a temple. This was the second temple. It was built in 520 B.C. after the Jews returned from exile. So Cyrus called them back. They started building the temple. But then King Herod expanded it and embellished it. He started this project in 19 B.C. And it was completed in 63 A.D. Which means that while Jesus was saying this, it was still happening.
The renovations were happening on the temple and the whole grounds while he was talking about this. While this whole scene happened. Here's a picture of a model of a temple. Herod made the courtyard twice as big as it was before. He put gold and silver plated doors and gates all over it. He used marble stones, some of them 67 feet high, 12 feet wide, and 18 feet deep. The temple was well known in the ancient world. Well known. One Roman historian called it immensely opulent.
It was very, very fancy. So imagine their shock when this offhanded remark that they make about how beautiful it is, how proud they are of it. Jesus says, As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. While it was being renovated and expanded. This is like if someone in New York City in 1971 looked up at the Twin Towers, one complete and the other one nearly done, and said, these are all going to fall.
Astounding, right? Shocking. So the disciples naturally say, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place? In Mark's telling of this whole encounter, they also ask, what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? To them, the destruction of the temple is so cataclysmic they can only imagine it happening at the end of the world.
So just like us, they're curious. Jesus, give us details. But also like us, they are forgetful. Remember, he's already told them that his return will be sudden. That they won't see it coming. That they should be ready at all times. They want to know about the last days. The last days, that's a very particular biblical phrase. Refers to the time before the end of the age. The last days. They want signs for when these last days are going to begin. But they're soon going to find out for themselves when the last days will begin.
Let's look at four passages. In Acts 2, at Pentecost, Peter says this. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And at the last days, it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. So Peter says an Old Testament prophecy about the last days is fulfilled at Pentecost.
Next, Hebrews 1. We read this. Long ago, and at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. The era of revelation through the son of God, it's called the last days. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul writes this. But understand this. In the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive. He goes on for about 25 more adjectives.
And then he says, avoid such people. So the command to avoid them now means that the last days have already begun. Right? Finally, in James 5, we read this. Come now, you rich. Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. You have laid up treasure in the last days. James condemns the rich for what they have done, saying that it has taken place in the last days. So Peter, Paul, James, the author of Hebrews, they all agree the last days have already arrived.
They started after the resurrected Jesus returned to the Father, and they continue now. Now, I'm saying all this because it helps us understand this passage. If we think like the disciples did, oh, the last days, that's down the road, we're just going to read this and be like, hmm, interesting. But we're not going to see it as things that are relevant to us now. That's why we went through those scriptures, to make the case for you. The last days are here.
They've been here. And yet, Jesus knows that during the last days, specific events will happen. One of those took place in 70 AD. During the first Jewish war, the Romans put down a rebellion of the Jewish people. Jerusalem was besieged for nearly five months. When the Romans finally broke through the innermost wall, they set fire to the temple.
Nearly the entire city was leveled. Jesus addresses that event specifically in verses 20 through 24 in this passage. Fleeing to the mountains, it's not good advice if it's the actual end of the world. It doesn't make any sense. And women who are pregnant and nursing wouldn't be any worse off than anyone else if it were the literal end of the world. In those verses, Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple. It's going to happen within the lifetime of everyone who's hearing him.
Just a few years after the renovations were finished. So the Olivet Discourse, this passage, and the passage that Jacob's going to preach on next week, it's complicated. It's found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It's complicated. But it helps to remember he's talking about many different things all together. The destruction of the temple, his return, and everything that's going to happen in between. It's like on Christmas when you reach into a box and take out your Christmas lights and you discover that they've all gotten bound up together.
The first step is to untangle it and figure out which strand is which. But all three of these things, the destruction of the temple, his return, and everything in between, they all have similarities because they all take place in the last days. They're all part of the last days, which I'll say again, we are in right now.
Outside of verses 20 through 24, most of this passage, it just describes what life will be like in the last days, okay? He tells them what to expect and how to live faithfully.
That's why he addresses things that don't signify the end. He says it over and over. It's not the end. This thing's going to happen. It's not the end. This is going to happen. It's not the end. And since we too live in the last days, what he says is relevant for us too. Okay, so that's my way to frame up this passage for us. There's two things that we need to grapple with today. One is expectations for what life is like in the last days. And the second is how to endure.
Okay? So here's the first one. The expectations expect hardship in the world. Jesus says to watch out for false prophets and false alarms. Many will come in my name saying, I am he and the time is at hand. This happened. Some after him claimed to be him returned. Paul refers to some people who taught that the resurrection had already happened. It happened then and it happens now. You've probably heard stories of cult leaders that claim to have some special revelation from God.
It usually involves the end times. And they dupe people. They pull people away. They deceive. They use those things, those lies to manipulate. But it's not just cult leaders. It's also just overly speculative people. Which we can all kind of be like that sometimes. The disciples showed it. They heard Jesus say something and they're like, when? How? Tell us the details, the signs. We want to be able to see it coming. There are people who think sometimes that they found the secret pattern of scripture that decodes all the current events and produces a prediction.
It reminds me of movies like The Goonies or other movies where this is like an 80s adventure movie trope. Where like someone has a map and they can't figure it out. But there's like certain holes in the map or something. And then they hold up the map against some landscape and it lines up perfectly. And they're like, oh, that's the answer. Sometimes we kind of treat this like that. If we kind of find the right places and we hold it up against the world, we're like, oh, that's the answer.
And then people put billboards up on 95. We figured it out. Even Jesus didn't know when he would return. So I'm pretty sure we won't be able to figure it out. He said, even I don't know. The Father alone knows.
We don't need to scan the newspapers or the internet. That's not the life that God wants us to lead. That's not how we live in the last times. He also said this time will be marked by unrest and upheaval. When you hear of wars and tumults, Jesus says. Wars put people on edge, right? It destabilizes us. The very foundations of the world seem to shake when there's war. I've lost count of the number of times that someone has heard of a war and said to me, Pastor, I really think that Jesus might be coming back because of this war or that war.
But he says here in this passage, these things must first take place. But the end will not be at once. Wars happened in the apostles' generation and in the generation after. In the generation after. In the generation after. Nations will rise against nation. Kingdoms against kingdom. That's what nations and kingdoms do. They fight. People fight with each other. If siblings fight and neighbors fight and co-workers fight, nations and kingdoms are going to fight.
But if there's something that puts people on edge more than war, it's natural disasters. Jesus speaks of great earthquakes, famines, pestilences. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven. Between 60 and 80 AD, there was famine, disease, widespread fires, a hurricane, and an earthquake. In the empire. Oh, and a volcano named Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and wiped out a little city called Pompeii you might have heard of. All that happened right around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.
Jesus is like, hey, that's not it. These things happen. Every generation thinks that their era is uniquely messed up. I see a bad moon horizon. Comets, plagues, hurricanes, ozone holes, melting glaciers. This is not the end.
It's just the time. This is not the end. It's just the time. Like we heard earlier from Romans, creation groans with eager longing for its release from bondage. It's under the bondage of sin, just like we are. And just like we do, it groans for release. These things keep happening.
Finally and most personally, in this time comes persecution and betrayal. They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, Jesus says. Even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends. And this is exactly what happens in the early church. Every apostle, except for John, died a martyr. And many more did too. The Roman Empire was brutal. And ever since, there has been violence and persecution against Christians. Before 2000, Pope John Paul II commissioned a research study on martyrs throughout history.
What it found is a thing that you might have heard of. That more Christians were killed for their faith in the 20th century than all other centuries combined. In fact, twice as many Christians were killed in the 20th century than the first 19 combined. Here's what I need, here's what I really feel like we ought to remember. The freedom of religion that we enjoy in this country, it is an exception, not the rule. And we should not expect it to continue.
We must be prepared for fewer privileges and benefits. And more harassment and discrimination. It will get worse. Jesus said, if they mistreated me, they will mistreat you too. And frankly, if we don't experience more of this, we ought to ask, why aren't we? Are we really that indistinguishable from the world?
So like us, the disciples are facing all these things. They hear this word from Jesus. They want information. They want information, information, information. They think that reassurance and comfort is found with just information. Just lay it out for us and we'll feel better. Jesus doesn't give it to them.
He knows that it won't help us endure. He waves us off of things that we think might signify the end. That's most of this passage. He's like, you're going to see this? Not the end. You're going to see this? Not the end. He's waving us off of the things that we might hone in on. But he also reminds us of the person who does reassure us and comfort us. Endurance doesn't come through information. It comes through relationship. This is the thing that I want you to hold on to.
Enduring in these last times does not come through more information. It comes through more relationship with the God who loved you and saved you. So here's the last section. Endure through his promises. There's three promises that Jesus gives us in this passage that helps us to endure. First is this. He will guide us. When I go to Cadence's cross-country meets, I watch and I cheer. I run from spot to spot where they're going to pass by. And I just yell my head off when she turns the corner and she's coming.
But one thing I cannot do is get on the course and say, this is the way. Follow me. Turns out they frown upon that. Your heavenly father is not so constrained.
He gets on that course with you. He gets in the race with you. He stays in the race with you. He runs ahead of you towards the finish line. And he says, this is the way. Follow me. He leads you, church, beside still waters and in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. He leads you. There's an old hymn called His Love Will Never Fail. It says this, Tis better far that I should walk by faith close to his side. I do not know the way I go, but oh, I know my guide.
If you have entrusted yourself to him, he's your guide. Let him be your guide. Don't be led astray by others that are claiming to fill that role. And his guidance comes when you get accused, too. When Jesus says, settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, it might be like, what? But he doesn't mean remain ignorant. He means don't depend on yourself. Don't depend on yourself, your own reasoning, your own rationale.
Immerse yourself in his words, his story, his assurances, his promises of what the future will hold and of how he will hold you. Rely on Jesus, who says, I will give you a mouth and wisdom.
Next, the next promise is this, he will protect us. Even amidst social unrest, natural disasters, and persecution, Jesus says, not a hair of your head will perish. How could he say such a thing when he knows the disciples will perish?
Because he knows that this life gives way to another life. A resurrection life, a life that will never end. What sweet assurance this has given to the saints over the ages. Everyone from Stephen in Acts to Reverend Clementa Pinkney and the eight others killed in 2015 at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
Everyone who has died for their faith has held on to the same promise. That this life is not all that there is. Those who belong to Christ can never be taken out of the Father's hand, even through death. This is why Jesus says, do not be terrified. What can man do to us? What can they do to us, really? They can accuse. They can mock. They can imprison. They can beat. They can kill. But they cannot separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Not only do we not need to be afraid, but church, we can approach danger differently. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Only the promise of God is so insanely over the top that it takes a danger and turns it into an opportunity. An opportunity to invite people into the kingdom. Even oppressors, captives, and adversaries can be invited into the kingdom. I got an email just over a week ago from a Mission to the World missionary in the Middle East.
I won't say much more about him because I don't want to compromise details, but he was on furlough, considering whether to return. And then events unfolded more, and they prayed about it and consulted, and they decided to return with their family for the sake of those in danger, for the sake of the gospel. This is what he said in his email. Security and contingency planning for the Christian is not about being prepared to escape crisis.
Security and contingency planning for the Christian is not about being prepared to escape crisis. Boy, he's putting his life where his mouth is right now because they're back there.
Yes and amen to what he wrote. Remember, Christ was delivered up into the hands of men in our place. He faced the wrath of God so that we wouldn't have to. He has defanged death. He sucked the poison out of death. It's gone.
When we face threats rather than looking for a way out, we can look for a way in. Finally, he will deliver us. Church, he will deliver us. All who trust God through Christ will reach the destination that he's planned, every one of them. None will be lost. By your endurance, you will gain your lives. Faith will lead to sight. Hope will give way to reality. Fulfillment is coming. A new heavens and a new earth for his redeemed people. Don't get attached to the things of this world.
The disciples were marveling at a temple that within their lifetime would be leveled and destroyed. But that temple was nothing compared to the temple that God is building. With the apostles as the foundation, his people, you and me as living stones, and Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. A holy temple for God inhabited by the Spirit. Don't get attached and don't give up. He's going to keep his word. Even in these last times.