Back in the day when we had 3 or 4 children at home at a time, we often took road trips. Once, I recall, we were living on the East side of Atlanta, and decided to go through Birmingham, AL toward a civil war battlefield in Tennessee, but I miscalculated the distance and so we stopped in Birmingham for a hamburger. We were all tired by the end of the meal, so we turned around and drove home. It began known as “the time we drove to Birmingham for a hamburger”.
Other times, we’d just go exploring, trying to find a
new place like a state park or just a place where we’d heard there might be a
pretty place. I remember us driving around, trying to figure out on the map
where to go. Yes, this was before GPS systems.
We looked at the map, turned off the four-lane, drove
down a two-lane, made a couple of turnoffs, then went down a small two-lane
road, it became a one-lane road, more and more it became a gravel road, and
then we saw a sign pointing to the little town we wanted to get to. We were
excited, because we knew we were getting close. We kept driving until we came
to a bridge. Well, not quite. There was no bridge – only a “Bridge-out” sign
and a sudden drop off. We could see the road we wanted to travel on the other
side of the river, but that didn’t do us any good. All of our fiddling with the map had been worthless. Sometimes, you can’t get to
where you want to go to. We needed a guide - the map was useless. Sometimes the road ends before you thought the road
would end.
Early in the last week of His life on the earth before
He was executed on the cross, Jesus and His disciples got into a series of
debates with Pharisees and Sadducees, the two principle groups of Jewish
leaders. They debated paying taxes, marriage during the resurrection, what the
greatest commandment was, and how the Messiah, the Savior, could possibly be
the Son of David if David called him “Lord”. Jesus then warned about the
teachers of the law and how they put on a great show for prestige and money –
and then complemented the faith of a widow who put two pennies into the Temple
treasury, all she had. They then left the Temple complex, a huge area.
One of the disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What
massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”
Jesus replied, “Do you see all these great buildings?
Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
A few minutes later, as Jesus was sitting on the Mount
of Olives where they could clearly look down upon the Temple, which undoubtedly
glittered and sparkled in the setting sun because of all the gold and gems and limestone
blocks. Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him quietly, “When will all these
things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be
fulfilled?”
Jesus told them tat it would be a while. “Watch out
that no one deceives you. Many will claim to be Me and will deceive many. Don’t
be alarmed when you hear of wars and rumors of wars. Such things must happen,
but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom
against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places and famines. These
are beginning of birth pains.”
Jesus spoke for several more minutes, reminding them
that they would be persecuted, but they must be His witnesses, speaking to
governors and kings. The gospel must be preached to all nations – but don’t worry
when you are arrested, just let the Holy Spirit speak.
But when they saw a sight from Daniel’s prophecies –
“The abomination that causes desolation” standing where it does not belong,
then all those in Judea should flee to the mountains. Quickly. Immediately. A
bad time follows. But then, after many false sightings, Jesus would be seen coming
in the clouds with great power and glory. But only the Father knows when – not
even the angels in heaven – nor even Jesus, but only the Father. So, Jesus
said, “Stay alert.”
Verse 30 is intriguing: “Truly I tell you, this generation
will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”
So looking back from the 21st century, we
know certain things.
First, we know that Jesus was speaking in the year 33
or 34 AD.
Second, we know that about 30 years later, within the
lifetime of many of the disciples, in 64 AD, a large Jewish revolt against
Roman rule began. The war continued until August of the year 70, when the
Romans broke down the gates of Jerusalem, entered the city, and then spent
several months destroying the city – and most particularly, the Temple of God.
Third, we know that in the year 134, after several
smaller revolts, the Romans had enough, and kicked the Jews out of Jerusalem,
later allowing them to return for a single day each year to mourn at what
remained, which was the Western retaining wall that supported the compound,
that wall we still see today as the Western Wall. It is all that remains of the
Temple complex. One group of Jews moved to Eastern Europe and Russia by way of Babylon,
Persia, and Kazakstan, the Askanazi, while another group moved to Egypt and
eventually to Spain, France, and England. These were the Sephardim.
Fourth, Jews slowly returned to Jerusalem over the
centuries, but not in great numbers until the late 1890’s, and then in
increasing numbers after World War I and again after World War II and another
surge came after the fall of the Soviet Union. Of course, the modern state of
Israel retook Jerusalem and declared it to be the capital during the 1967
Six-day war.
At the time of Jesus, there were about 6 million Jews,
almost all of whom lived in the Roman Empire, with about half living in the
Holy Land, and the other half living dispersed throughout the Empire. The
Empire’s total population at that time was about 100 million, so about 1/16th
of the population was Jewish.
Today, there are about 18 million Jews worldwide, with
about 6 million living in the Holy Land, about 6 million living in the United
States, and the rest scattered throughout the world. About 6 million died
during World War II in work camps, prisons, and extermination camps in
German-occupied territory. The Jews have suffered tremendously over the centuries since the Romans destroyed their Temple. But prophecies have kept them optimistic about the future.
In this view, the return of Christ will be signified by a series of events which leads up to the Rapture, when all the dead and living Christians will meet Jesus in the air. Then, a series of terrible events we call the Tribulation will happen over the next seven years, in two periods of three and a half years, during which the world is basically destroyed and non-believers may or may not have a chance to repent and be saved. All of these points are argued over.
An Anti-Christ appears, an evil man
opposed to Christ. After this, the old heaven and earth pass away and a new
Heaven and a New Earth appear, with New Jerusalem, descending in Revelation 21,
a massive city 1500 miles wide by 1500 miles long by 1500 miles high.
In
New Jerusalem there is no Temple. None is needed, for God the Father and Jesus
the Son walk with us. The Tree of Life is there, bearing fruit twelve times a
year – and the living water flows from the throne of God. Life is good, life is
eternal, and we are ruled by the wisest king of the Universe, which is what
makes New Jerusalem such a special place.
Unfortunately,
while New Jerusalem is promised, this standard model of how we get there may or
may not be true. The end has been predicted many times, especially in America,
by this preacher and that preacher, beginning in the 1800’s. In fact, since 1901, there have been at least 81 predictions of the end of the world. For example, in 1918, the
Jehovah’s Witnesses began to say that “Millions now living will never die” as
they expected the Return to occur in the mid 1920’s. Other preachers have given
countdowns to the end. As my son Andy is fond of saying, despite his young age
of 24, the world has supposedly ended five times in his life alone. But we clearly don’t know how to interpret all of these ideas about end times. And, by the way, there are currently six more predictions of the end of the world between now and 2088.
Interpretations have varied over time. For
example, it appears likely that the destruction Jesus talked about in Mark’s
Gospel was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. There are many
historical figures who have been identified as the Anti-Christ, such as the
Roman Emperor Nero who ruled at the time the Jewish Revolt began in 64 AD; Attila
the Hun who sacked Rome a few centuries later; Martin Luther, who began the
Protestant Reformation; Napoleon Bonaparte, who temporarily conquered much of
Europe around 1800; Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany who led Germany during World War
I; Adolph Hitler, who led Germany during World War II; Stalin, the leader of
Russia during and after World War II; and even Ronald Wilson Reagan, our
President, who happened to have 6 letters in each of his names, and thus was
tied to "666", the "Number of the Beast" by some people.
My
point is simple – Only God the Father knows the time schedule for the end – not
even Jesus nor any of His disciples. This is something that Jesus Himself has
told us. And so I think that anyone who claims to know the schedule for the end
of the world is simply trying to sell books and videos.
So
what should a person do?
It
is good to break away from the useless study of things we have been told we
cannot understand, and study those things of God that we can understand. In the
Book of Hebrews, chapter ten, the writer tells us:
11 Day after day every priest stands and
performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same
sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
The
writer is referring to the Temple priests of his time, where the priest perform
sacrifices to pay the penalties for sins, which still did not take away those
sins, merely paying the fines, merely apologizing for the sins.
12 But when this priest [meaning Jesus] had
offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand
of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his
enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For
by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made
holy.
Those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, who have repented
of our sins and been made clean by baptism are made perfect by the sacrifice of
Jesus. As far as God is concerned, our sins are taken away forever. The writer
continues:
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us
about this. First he says:
16 “This is the covenant I
will make with them after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on
their minds.”
17 Then he adds: “Their sins
and lawless acts I will remember no more.” 18 And where these
have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
There is no longer any
need to sacrifice animals and grain at the Temple, for God the Father has
forgiven us and no longer remembers our sins and lawless acts. Through the Holy
Spirit, God has put the laws in our hearts and written them on our minds. We
are no longer bound to laws engraved on tablets and written on scrolls, but
through the Holy Spirit, we can understand what God’s law is for this specific
occasion, rather than worry about interpreting between conflicting laws that
were engraved permanently and could not take into account changing situations.
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we
have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by
a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his
body,
In the great Temple of God, there was a Most Holy Place where only the high priest could visit – and he could only visit once a year. A rope was tied to his leg in case he messed up and God killed him - it happened several times over the centuries.
This Most Holy Place was
separated from the world by a special curtain. Yet, because of the
self-sacrifice of Jesus, the blood of Jesus has opened a way for us to approach
God in this Most Holy Place. The Gospels tell us that upon the death of Jesus,
there was a great earthquake and the curtain was ripped in the Temple from the
top to the bottom by God.
21 and since we have a great priest over
the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a
sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our
hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our
bodies washed with pure water.
Through
baptism, we are now clean enough to approach God, following Jesus Christ who
presides of the house of God today. Have you considered how much misery we have
brought into our lives because of our guilty conscience about all we’ve done
wrong? Trust in God and Jesus – they have said that they forgive our sins and
lawless acts no longer. Even forgive yourself, because when we don’t forgive
ourselves, we are pretending that our opinion of what we have done wrong is
more important than God’s opinion of what we have done wrong – and God is the
one who established what is right and what is wrong in the first place. The
writer continues:
23 Let us hold unswervingly to the
hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And
let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as
some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as
you see the Day approaching.
Because we can approach God in the hope and faith of eternal life,
we can stop being selfish and instead do acts of love and good deeds toward one
another, continuing to meet together and encourage one another. And the closer
we get to the end, the more we should do this.
But do you remember I told you about us driving down a road, only
to find a Bridge Out sign – and no bridge? The road continued on the other side
of the river.
For most people, this is the way that the road to the end of the
world has been. For centuries, people have been trying to get to New Jerusalem
where they will meet Jesus, drawing out all sorts of maps to get there. We come up with all sorts of ways to get there, arguing with each
other whether there will be a rapture – or not, whether the rapture will happen
before the seven years of tribulation, in the middle of the tribulation, or
after the tribulation, some people say that the tribulation has already
happened because it was what the Jews went through during World War II or maybe
under the Emperor Nero, and so we try to draw out the map and figure out the
way to New Jerusalem with Jesus.
And then, a bus hits us as we cross the road, COVID comes and we
end up on a ventilator, we have a heart attack, we are diagnosed with Stage 4
cancer, and we see the sign ahead: “BRIDGE OUT”. And after our drive down the
road of life stops, we realize that we were always headed to New Jerusalem with
Jesus, following Jesus – or we were going to fall over that sudden drop off, because we weren’t
following Jesus.
How the end times happen isn’t important.
What is important is whether or not you’ve decided to follow
Jesus, our great high priest. For Jesus knows the way to New Jerusalem. Only
Jesus. As the writer of Hebrews says:
“since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let
us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that
faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty
conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the
hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one
another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not
giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but
encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Take the trip. Find New Jerusalem. Follow Jesus, for He is the
only way to get there.
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