The Incessant Need to Know When [part one] ...

Imagine if you could know with 100% certainty, the exact moment of your death.  But with this knowledge would come a complete inability to alter the outcome one iota.  Would you prefer to know, or not know?  Most of us would rather be surprised.  Knowing makes every moment between now and then a countdown clock, a constant ticking of wasted time, and wasted opportunities.  Between now and then, we must still work, still function in our communities, still be the people we were before the knowledge of our death.  That knowledge could work as a huge depressant to our lives, ticking away at it.  We might either waste that time between now and then, or maximize it.  Not knowing on the other hand, which is how we all have it today, offers us hope that what we do might somehow impact when we die.  It gives our prayers even more meaning, as hope in God can change any outcome.  So it would appear our God has chosen not to share with us, “the when” of every bit of information in our lives.

But what if a prophecy could have meaningful impacts from a change in our behavior.  What if the purpose of prophecy was not simply to depress, but to warn, and thereby avoid depression or evil outcomes?  This kind of knowledge would become invaluable.  This kind of information would be priceless.  And so, Jesus having just foretold the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, would face the inevitable human question of “when” it should come to pass.  I suppose the question in itself represents a level of faith.  The disciples were not going to plead for the Temple’s continuation, or ask if it could be somehow avoided by what actions they would take.  Instead they were all resigned that if Jesus said it would happen, it would surely happen, and the most pertinent information they could know is simply … when.

Peter continues his recollection to John Mark in chapter thirteen of his gospel picking up again in verse 3 saying … “And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,”  This text begins with setting the context, Jesus and His disciples have left the Temple.  They have traveled over to the Mount of Olives, and now they have a fairly good view of the Temple from their location.  This venue only serves to stir up the memories of Jesus’ words, and four of the disciples want to know more.  Perhaps all the disciples did, but only four of them sought to ask Jesus in whatever privacy they could muster.  Peter, James, and John, seemed always to be the top three disciples when missions of privacy or importance came up from our Lord.  But perhaps that is only because they were the only three who sought out to do these things.  Andrew joined them here, and he was not excluded at all.  Maybe this is a lesson to us.  The wisdom of Jesus is not confined to the pastor, head elder, and head deaconess in our churches, it is available to anyone who asks, even one so lowly as you and I.

Mark continues in verse 4 saying … “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?”  It is important to note context once again.  Jesus had just prophesied the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem.  He was not talking about His own second coming.  Often we flip back and forth between the other 3 gospels and conflate this questions about “when” with signs of His second coming, mostly because the language is very similar.  But Peter is clear.  There is no conflation.  Jesus had just prophesied about the Temple at Jerusalem’s destruction, and that is what the disciples were interested in knowing when it would occur.  Further, they were asking for signs, or warning conditions, or actions that would precede this event, in order that they would know it was coming soon.

Jesus answers them picking up in verse 5 saying … “And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:”  The first concern of our Lord was not answering them the calendar date of 70 AD when due to a Roman retaking of Jerusalem the Temple would be destroyed again.  Those were the facts as history would demonstrate them.  But to Jesus there was something more important, and that was a connection with Himself, not with false human alternatives.  If you do not stay connected to Jesus, and allow humans to influence what you believe, you can be talked into all kinds of fallacies.  Deception comes from listening to anything other than Jesus.  Whether that makes sense to you or not, is irrelevant.  Doing it is what matters.  Abraham would never have attempted to sacrifice his only son, if he listened to humans that would have told him he was crazy.  That the voice in his head was a hallucination, and that God never orders a murder.  But Abraham maintained his connection and did what he was told.

Jesus continues in verse 6 saying … “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.”  The days of the Messiah were not at an end for those who rejected Jesus.  Pharisees and rebels against Rome would promote their own versions of a Messiah, in order to bring the people to their own way of thinking.  Satan would stand behind every one of them, working his own supernatural power to make a pretend Jesus nearly as good as the real Jesus.  Satan always offers a counterfeit for what God creates in perfection.  Each imposter of Christ would have special backing from Satan in order to counterfeit the real ministry of Jesus Christ.  For those who did not want to hear truth, for those who were content to be placated by what they wanted to believe, the voice of false Messiah decrying the Roman empire would ring true, and deceive many.

Jesus continues in verse 7 saying … “And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.”  Christ then addresses what can strike fear in the heart of a man.  War in the days of Jesus was something that left little prisoners, and little left alive.  Invading armies killed all the men, took the women as slaves and concubines.  Butchered children or only increased the slave count.  Homes were completely wiped out.  Crops were burned.  Commerce was ended.  Rumors that a great Assyrian army was set to invade, or a great Egyptian or Ethiopian army was to invade leaving only a scorched earth, could strike fear into the heart of a man.  But Jesus wished for us to leave our fears behind, and focus our security in Him.  He foretells that wars will exist, and rumors will persist, but these do NOT declare the end of the Temple at Jerusalem.

Jesus continues in verse 8 saying … “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.”  The sorrows of our world are in fact, NOT signs of the end, nor of the end of Temple at Jerusalem.  They are declared by Jesus Christ as only the beginning of sorrows.  The idea that man could bring about the end of the world in our day by his military actions or his political policies is laid out as false by Jesus Christ.  All we could ever do, is add to the sorrows our world already has to deal with.  The changes in our climate and the calamities that are ever increasing in our world, are also NOT signs of the end of all things, they are only a continuation of the sorrows identified by Jesus Christ so long ago.  They may get worse, but they do not represent His soon return.  For after all, if these signs did not mean anything against the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, why would they be of significance in the end of days?

Jesus continues in verse 9 saying … “But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them.”  This is very clearly counsel given to the disciples and apostles of Christ and largely in their day or generation.  Synagogues are no longer a threat to the Christian faith, and in most of the world Christianity does not have to defend itself in the courts of monarchs who can persecute and take life arbitrarily.  But it was so in the days of Jesus.  In His day, and in the days of the disciples, this was a real threat, and a real concern.  But Jesus says, only know that this is coming.

Jesus continues in verse 10 saying … “And the gospel must first be published among all nations. [verse 11] But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.”  Jesus makes a seemingly disconnected series of statements here.  Verse ten establishes the need for the gospel to be “published” among all nations.  Peter and his compatriots surely could have translated the gospel into the popular languages of the day, that would have touched the limits of the world they knew.  But it would not have reached the limits of the world we know today.  So this statements seems to have another relevance to the disciples.  It took Peter and the others a good long while, before they were willing to reach out to gentiles, and others with the gospel.  Paul would be the biggest ambassador here.  It would take long argument to get the church at Jerusalem to see the value in ALL in humans, beyond just Jews.

Verse eleven, becomes a promise to the disciples, as well as one we can rely upon today.  When taken in to defend our faith, we do not need to prepare.  This is something that runs counter to our nature today.  We rarely believe any speech is worth anything without preparation.  Particularly if that speech is a legal brief, or one upon which heavy circumstances could rely.  But Jesus tells His own disciples that even when brought before kings who could have them killed, to purposely avoid preparation.  They are to trust the Holy Spirit, who will tell them what to say, when they have need to say it.  Imagine what our pastors might say if they ALL took the same approach with the same faith.  Imagine what you might say.  Could our world become a better place if instead of attempting preparation, we simply trusted in the wisdom and love of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus continues in verse 12 saying … “Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. [verse 13] And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”  The conditions Jesus describes begin with the earliest faith, and are maintained until the end.  In the early days, the disciples were hated by the upright Jews who rejected Christ.  Those families who still sided with the Pharisees would turn over new believers unto death.  And now in our day, in perhaps the last days, those believers who look to trust Jesus with our salvation, turning away from the idea of self-salvation, may engender the hatred of those who do not want to hear, they are unable to save themselves.  This hatred may grow, as transformed hearts begin to stand in stark contrast with Christians who do not love, can only judge, and offer condemnation for other people’s sins.  The Christian who remains untransformed by the Love of Jesus Christ will eventually use scriptures to justify his hate of those who are truly changed.  That hate will grow until it reached the levels of persecution of old.  For those who have no love, have no resistance to killing in the name of God.

The dangers Christ enumerates are not limited to those outside of the faith looking inwards at it.  They are as real for those inside the faith, looking at each other in it.  The text begins by listing “brother shall betray brother”.  Why should Christians believe they are immune to this idea?  The Pharisees were willing to kill Christ the author of their very religion and scriptures.  Through the ages, crusades mark the willingness of Christians to kill other people in the name of our God.  Today in modern politics, American Christians believe their faith is under attack, and think they must defend it, with lethal means if needed.  The idea of shedding blood in the name of God is not a new one.  It dates back as old as Satan is.  Our God tells us to love each other, and to love our enemies.  One cannot kill what one truly loves.  But therein is the rub.  Christians do not truly love each other, nor do they truly love their enemies.

We talk about loving others, and the need to do so.  But our feeling, motives, and actions reflect something else entirely.  We tolerate each other, and less so, our enemies.  Our language betrays us.  Our lack of converts betray us.  No one is motivated to find and follow the Jesus Christ many of us represent.  For that Jesus is cold, unfeeling, and uncaring.  Why would any non-believer, or sinner, come to find a Jesus who means only to burn them for what they do, not redeem them from the pain they are in?  The transformed heart views the world differently.  But few submit to Christ to actually be transformed.  They offer lip service to love, and reflect nearly none of it.  One of the first signs of a truly transformed heart is passion.  A great passion about the lives and needs of others (no matter if family, friend, or self-declared enemy).  The transformed hearts begin to empathize as if what happens to another is happening to themselves.  They cannot bear to remain silent, or still.  They must do something.  They must do anything.

The contrast of those kinds of Christians, with the kind who spew only judgement and condemnation will one day reach a point, of persecution.  Those who have no feeling, have no compassion, have no love; will be all too willing to kill those who do.  Redemption is the not the primary goal of the Christian who has not been transformed.  A call for justice is.  Christians without love believe themselves forgiven, and therefore saved.  They want others to admit their guilt, beg for forgiveness, and then join them in a hunt for those who do not yet believe.  But forgiveness is not enough.  Being sorry, or pretending to, while still craving the same sins we did before, reflects no real change in our lives.  Seeking out the sins of others, in order to feel better by comparison, is the not the standard our God uses for perfection.  It is fallacy.  It is deception.  And it is what Christ was warning about all those years ago.

Only through submission to Jesus, that allows Him to recreate who we are, will we finally be able to love others like He loves others.  Only then will we ever be truly sorry for who we used to be.  Only then will our actions reflect new motives that are in harmony with the Law.  Only then is obedience possible.  All of the things the judgmental Christian calls for, are found only in the transformation submitting to Jesus will accomplish.  Which side of persecution will you find yourself within? The side of brother who betrays brother unto death?  Or the side of those who know Jesus so intimately that their passion remains even for the one who would betray them unto death? 

Jesus was not done just yet …