“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”
Mark 13:26-27
Main Readings: 2 Thessalonians 2 & Mark 13
Supporting Readings: Hebrews 10 & Revelation 3
If you remember, last time I attempted to show how Jesus’ teaching in this passage uses an approach common in biblical prophecy to simultaneously explain to his disciples the looming temple judgment - which happened in AD70 - and to explain to us that the ultimate end of the age – defined by the return of the Lord Jesus - could come at any moment.
That AD70 fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy about the temple gives us every reason to take seriously his words about the end of the age. Which is why this passage is still so relevant for us today.
With that in mind, the world-wide instability of the last few weeks coincides with this moment in our Gospel of Mark series so acutely, I think, that it also serves to reinforce the importance of this chapter for us as Christians today.
Since God, through his servant Mark, thought it important enough to record this long speech from Jesus - the longest of any of Jesus’ recorded in Mark - then I suppose these words of Jesus must be very valuable for my Christian life, and for yours also.
It certainly seems the Apostle Paul thought so. When he wrote to the Thessalonians the second time, he addressed these self-same things in chapter 2 of his letter. He said to them, ‘don’t you remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things?’
Evidently, he had thought it worthwhile to tell the infant Thessalonian church these kinds of things, and then, when he thought they had forgotten them, to remind them of them.
So, I’m happy to spend some more time this morning, in a place where Jesus and Paul thought there was benefit to the faith of believers to be had.
Our focus last time was mainly centred on the period Jesus describes in verse 8 as ‘the beginning of birth pains’ - the time, I think, we are nowliving in.
Verse 14 though represents a shift into a different period, that Jesus here calls ‘days if distress’ in verse 19 and similar in verse 24.
It has some unique features about it - like the arrival on the scene of something called the ‘abomination of desolation’ (v.14) and false messiahs and prophets who can perform signs and wonders (v.22).
But it is also characterised by these two main things. Things that the period of ‘onset birth pains’ was characterised by also - namely deception and persecution.
The level of deception in this period will be so severe, Jesus says, that even the elect will be at risk of being deceived into wandering after these false messiah’s and false prophets (v.22).
But Praise God! That can’t happen! Jesus indicates it can’t happen by the words, ‘if possible’. If it were possible for the elect to be so deceived – which it isn’t, otherwise they wouldn’t be the elect.
Let’s affirm this truth with Jesus: God has an elect people - chosen before the foundation of the world to receive salvation through the shed blood of Jesus.
Paul says, famously in Romans 8, ‘those God predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified [through Jesus’ death for them]; those he justified, he also glorified’.
The elect cannot fall from grace! God guarantees that, through his son Jesus. And though the greatest deception come against them, they will not fall for it, because God will ‘keep them to the end’ 1 Corinthians 1:8 says.
Deception - that’s one of the intensifying characteristics of this period of great distress that is coming. The other is persecution.
Saints who stand firm for Jesus in this period of what Jesus calls in Matthew’s account ‘tribulation’ will be persecuted.
Jesus indicates that in this period the persecution will be so intense that it will result in distress ‘unequalled since the beginning, when God created the world, until then - and never to be equalled again’ (v.19).
In fact, verse 20 records Jesus saying that not a single believer would survive that period, were its length not cut short to prevent that from happening.
So global, intense, era-defining deception and persecution, coincidingwith the appearing of the ‘abomination that causes desolation’ is decreed for the world and God’s people before the last defining moment.
The last act of history doesn’t just unfold on a global but on a cosmicscale too. Jesus shows us that in verse 24.
But before we go there, you might be wondering what the phrase ‘abomination that causes desolation’ refers to.
It certainly refers to the Old Testament book of Daniel where this exact phrase is used several times – in chapters 9, 11 & 12.
And I think it’s widely agreed that the Daniel references coincide with a historical character called Antiochus Epiphanes who, around 167BC, set himself up in the temple as the God Zeus and desecrated it by offering a pig on the altar.
Then when AD70 swung around, Titus and his legions did similar things in the temple also.
And now, Jesus here talks about another character in the same vein, who appears at the end of the age.
Paul, in 2 Thessalonians, refers to this character by the title ‘the man of lawlessness’. He says, ‘Don’t let anyone deceive you [just like here in Jesus’ words] in any way, for that day [he’s referring to the coming of the Lord Jesus] will not come until the rebellion occurs, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.
[What will he be like? Paul continues] He will oppose and will exalthimself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God’.
In verse 7, he goes on to say that there is one who currently holds back the secret power of lawlessness, but then a moment comes when the one who holds it back is taken out of the way, and then the lawless one is revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming.
So, this abomination-that-causes-desolation-type character comes on the scene very suddenly. And when he does, he causes a greatintensification of distress to followers of Jesus, and he seems to have great powers to deceive the inhabitants of the world.
And Jesus is telling us all this ahead of time. Evidently, he wants us to be ready. I said last time; these words go out to every generation.
And there are no time indicators so that, any given generation - like ours right now – couldn’t possibly say ‘this won’t come in our lifetime’. It absolutely could!
If Jesus exhorts us eight times in this passage to readiness - which he does - it should not go unnoticed. His watchword in verse 13 is ‘Everyone will hate you because of me’. That is the hinge on which Jesus swings into talking about the period of tribulation and distress.
And his message is clear: ‘it’s not going to get easier at that point - it’s going to get a whole lot more intense’. He wants us to stand firm in the face of deception and persecution now. And to be ready for even more deception and persecution when the man of lawlessness appears.
He says in verse 13 ‘the one who stands firm will be saved’. And that implies, by simple process of logic, that the one who doesn’t stand firm – in the face of deception and persecution - won’t be saved.
That leads us into some difficulty because I said just a few minutes ago that all the elect of God will be finally saved - Romans 8 calls it ‘glorified’.
So why does Jesus seemingly place doubt where there is no doubt, you might ask.
First, to make sure that this isn’t some isolated reference, let’s see if the New Testament talks like this anywhere else. If it does, then we can have more reason to take it at face value.
Here’s Jesus in John 6:37, ‘All those the Father gives me will come to me [that’s certainty] and I will never drive them away [that’s security]’.
But then in John 15:6 he says, ‘If you do not remain in me and I in you, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned’.
Or Paul. He says what we just read in Romans 8:30 - all those God predestined are finally glorified. And then he says in Romans 11:22, ‘Consider then the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off’.
Here's Peter, ‘This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time’.
And then he goes and says in 2 Peter 2, ‘If they have escaped the corruption of this world by knowing our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ[they knew him] and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning’.
One more, though I have them for James and John also. Hebrews 10:14, ‘For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy’. That certainty.
And then he says in the very same chapter (verse 26), ‘If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God’.
So, the New Testament scriptures, through every mouthpiece and in somany places, speak both of eternal security and warn against apostasy. And I believe that Jesus does that here too.
One minute he’s talking about the preservation of the elect, and the next he’s saying that only those who stand firm to the end will be saved - which lands on us with some degree of urgency and warning.
This is not illogical though. And it is not impactful on our assurance either – though it might seem so. I’ll try to illustrate how that’s the case.
When I was a younger dad and my children were too little to know much about 100-foot drops, we went on a cliff-top walk in Cornwall.
My recollection of that walk is that I took my little child firmly by the hand, and placed him on the safe side of me - so that I was betweenhim and the cliff.
And, walking along the path, I said fairly frequently to him, ‘don’t strain at my hand, there’s a big drop over there’. I said, ‘Don’t walk away from me, because if you fall off that edge there’s no coming back’.
Now, I was a lot stronger than him, he couldn’t get away from my grip on that walk if he’d wanted to - he was secure. So why did I repeatedly speak warnings to him?
Several reasons. For one, the cliff edge was real, and it was really dangerous - I wanted him to know that. Two, when I explained the danger to him it had the effect of making him press in closer to me.
He felt his need of his dad more, and I liked that. He trusted me more when he knew there was danger nearby - and that trust was real.
And three, he was learning, and one day he would thank me for that because he wouldn’t have false confidence on a path that actually had a 100ft drop just off to the left.
This notion has been born out recently in a verse from our series in Philippians. Paul says, ‘continue to work out your salvation with fearand trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose’.
This is how the dynamic of perseverance and preservation works. ‘Fear and trembling’ Paul says. ‘Work out your salvation’ Paul says. Because it’s ‘God who works in you’ Paul says.
Jesus wants us to know that the deception is real and dangerous. He wants the warnings to have the spiritual effect that we press in closerto him - which is why warnings don’t undermine assurance. And he does not want us to have false confidence.
Jesus wants true confidence – rooted in him. And it comes by doing this thing that he calls ‘standing firm’. So, what does he mean by ‘stand firm’?
In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul says to stand firm also. He says, ‘so then brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter’. So here, ‘standing firm’ is by means of God’s word.
In Ephesians 6, which we all know well, Paul exhorts us to put on the full armour of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes. He says, ‘Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand’. By which I take him to mean the same as Jesus, to be able to stand before Jesus at the last day with faith in Jesus intact.
There’s righteousness to put on, there’s faith to put on, there’s truthto put on, there’s salvation and peace to put on, a sword of the Spirit to take up. And after all that, there’s prayer to be done in the Spirit on all occasions. Standing firm happens by these means.
And one last example, though there are others, Philippians 1:27, ‘Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Then whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit strivingtogether as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you’.
Here the emphasis is falling on the unity of the body as it strives together for faith – that’s a means of standing firm too. There are others also.
In other words, God sovereignly supplies all we need to stand firmin our faith - spiritual armour, fellow believers, his word, prayer, and more. And we are to take hold of them and use them so that bythem we will stand firm.
All God’s elect people will do this. They will respond to God’s warnings and his promises, and they will fight to stand firm in the faith with everything God has supplied so that they really do stand firm in the faith.
And because he is supplying everything they need to stand firm, their appreciation of all that he is for them grows; and their love for him deepens – like the child with his father. And God is glorified by it.
You know, little children often get dazzled by all kinds of insignificantthings, even when they’re on one-hundred-foot cliffs. It’s not wise to think that standing firm is a passive or inattentive activity - like you don’t need to pay any attention to it.
Satan is not docile. He presents us with everything that dazzles, so that we are tempted to strain at the hand of God. Jesus knows it. Did Satan not tempt Jesus with bread and kingdoms? Will he not tempt us also?
No Jesus’ warnings cause us to press in closer and we find fullerassurance there. Any assurance that is not based on knowing him better, delighting in him more, walking in his footsteps closer is a false assurance and not to be trusted. Jude says, ‘keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life’.
This is why Jesus talks the way he talks in this chapter of Mark’s gospel I believe, and why we need to take his warnings seriously and act on them.
This deepening appreciation of Jesus makes us yearn for his appearing all the more, because when he appears our experience of him will be made full - and that’s what we want.
In verse 24, following the days of distress, Jesus says there will be cosmic disturbances that accompany the return of Jesus in great power and glory! Sun and moon darkened, stars falling from the sky and heavenly bodies shaken.
And I was taught, growing up, not to take these details literally, but I don’t think I have any good reason not take them literally. It’s not as if God hasn’t done amazing things in the heavens before, I don’t see why he wouldn’t when his own Son returns in all his pomp and glory.
The details of his return are quite breathtaking really. It seems from 2 Thessalonians 1 that when he comes, he will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire.
Jesus says in verse 26 that ‘people will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds’. It sounds dramatic - and I expect it to be dramatic, when he comes!
The angels are, according to verse 27, going to be sent by Jesus to gather the elect - those who have stood firm in their faith to the end; those who have stayed awake; who he finds watching for him when he comes (v.36).
He says, the angels will gather the elect from the four winds - by which he means from every quarter of the world and from heaven too.
I don’t think Jesus is focusing here on detailed timings, but in real terms, we know from other passages like 1 Thessalonians 3 that the Lord Jesus will return with all his saints.
We know from chapter 4 that the dead in Christ will rise - that is be resurrected - and then we who are alive at his return will be caught up together with them to meet Jesus in the air.
We will go out to meet him like wedding guests going out to meet the bridegroom, and we will return with him with songs of joy to feast at the wedding banquet of the lamb. That will be us.
He will take up his throne, and so we will be with him forever. This is what Titus 2:13 calls our ‘blessed hope’ and what a hope it is!
Paul says to Timothy, ‘I finished the race, I have kept the faith [just like Jesus is imploring us to do here]. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge will awardto me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longedfor his appearing’.
I want to long for his appearing with all of you. I want to work with you for your joy in Jesus. I want us, together, to stand firm in and to stay wide-awake through the end time deception and the end time persecution that God has ordained for his people.
I want us to press into Jesus more and more. And in concrete ways that serve to build our trust in him.
I want us to tell each other faith-building truths about Jesus. I want us to pray together in the Spirit on all occasions. I want us to testourselves together, to see if we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). I want us, together, to identify the narrow path and to continue to walk in it. I want us to bring deep spiritual truths to bear in all the circumstances of our lives that might be used by Satan to temp us to distrust the goodness of our God, or to forget his promises.
I think Jesus wants us to be that kind of community - of watchful people who are looking out for each other in these ways. God has us kept. And he’s using means like these to accomplish it.
Perhaps, by God’s grace, this very message will be a means that is used of God in our lives to make us stand firm in our faith - I pray it will be so.
Paul says to Timothy, ‘watch your life and doctrine closely [this is a charge to me and Paul here at Riverside]. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers’.
I think Timothy was a believer - I think his hearers were believers. Butsomehow his life and his doctrine served his message, and the promise was that his message would, in some way, be used to save his hearers and himself, finally.
I want this message to save me from wandering perilously, and I want that for you too.
May God keep us all, by his gracious means, faithful to the very end I pray. And may we all say often and together: ‘come Lord Jesus come!’
What a day that will be!