1. "What would you pay to know the future accurately? Tomorrow's headlines today, what would it be worth to you? What difference would it make? The future means change. Things do not always remain the same."

2. "Jesus is more accurate than Nostradamus. Jesus doesn't get a lot of air time for this part of his ministry. But Jesus is the most shockingly accurate predictor of the most extraordinary things that you can ever imagine."

3. "Just as the Garden of Eden before the place of chief blessing becomes the epitome of God's judgment on His people, so too here, Jerusalem, now the chief place of God's favor in revealing himself to his people, would become now the chief place of God's terrible judgments against those who had been unfaithful to him."

4. "If you're in a deep trial, I can't make it seem like it's not a trial, but I can tell you it is also an opportunity. It is an opportunity for you to bear witness to God's sufficiency, to His faithfulness in Christ."

5. "The most important aspect of the end of the world is not anything in the world of politics. It's not death and destruction and rapture. It's not armies and Armageddon or the Antichrist or the United Nations. The most important aspect of the end of the world is the return of Christ."

6. "The end of the world will certainly come whenever it does as a surprise to you if your heart is captured by the concerns of this life."

7. "Dissipation is carelessly pursuing pleasure, wasting money, indulging vices, acting in such a way that is really ignoring your health and well-being. Beware of how Satan can use pleasure to entrap us. Pleasure itself is good, but in our fallen world and with our fallen hearts, it attaches itself to the wrong things sometimes."

8. "Don't use grace as an excuse to be a kind of spiritual daredevil, you know, just to see how you can test God by getting close to the spiritual edge without going over into sin."

9. "If you're coming to a Christian church in order to see how you can make your life good enough for God, you will completely fail. Your good life will be only as worthwhile as a Kleenex landing on the surface of the sun."

10. "We must watch. That is true. But an even greater truth to remember today is that God watches over us."

Observation Questions

1. In Luke 21:5-7, what did the disciples comment on regarding the temple, and what shocking prediction did Jesus make in response about its future?

2. According to Luke 21:12-15, what did Jesus say would happen to His disciples before the destruction of Jerusalem, and what did He promise to give them during those times of persecution?

3. In Luke 21:20-24, what specific instructions did Jesus give to those in Judea and Jerusalem when they saw the city surrounded by armies?

4. According to Luke 21:25-28, what cosmic signs and earthly conditions did Jesus say would accompany the coming of the Son of Man, and how should His followers respond when these things begin to take place?

5. In Luke 21:33, what comparison did Jesus make between heaven and earth on one hand and His words on the other?

6. According to Luke 21:34-36, what three things did Jesus warn could weigh down the hearts of His followers, and what did He command them to do in order to escape and stand before the Son of Man?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think Jesus chose to prophesy about the destruction of the temple—the very center of Jewish religious life and hope—at this particular moment in His ministry, and what was He teaching His disciples about where true worship and God's presence would now be found?

2. In verse 13, Jesus tells His disciples that persecution will be "your opportunity to bear witness." How does this statement transform our understanding of suffering and hardship in the Christian life, and why would Jesus frame persecution as an opportunity rather than merely a trial to endure?

3. What is the significance of Jesus claiming in verse 33 that His words will outlast heaven and earth? What does this tell us about who Jesus is and how we should relate to Scripture?

4. The sermon noted that Jesus grouped together "dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life" (verse 34) as things that weigh down the heart. What do these three things have in common, and why might anxious worry be spiritually similar to drunkenness in its effect on our readiness for Christ's return?

5. How does the historical fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy about Jerusalem's destruction in 70 AD strengthen our confidence in His other predictions that have not yet been fulfilled, particularly His promise to return in power and glory?

Application Questions

1. Jesus warned that dissipation (careless pursuit of pleasure), drunkenness, and anxious cares can make us spiritually unprepared for His return. Which of these three poses the greatest threat to your spiritual alertness right now, and what specific step could you take this week to guard your heart against it?

2. The sermon emphasized that trials become "opportunities to bear witness" to God's sufficiency. Think of a current difficulty or hardship you are facing—how might you view this situation differently if you saw it as an opportunity to testify to Christ's faithfulness? Who might be watching how you respond?

3. Jesus commanded His disciples to "stay awake at all times, praying" (verse 36). What does your current prayer life reveal about your spiritual alertness? What is one practical change you could make to become more consistent or intentional in prayer this week?

4. The sermon challenged listeners about their use of time and technology, including "doom scrolling" and careless social media habits. How do your digital habits either help or hinder your spiritual watchfulness, and what boundaries might you need to establish to "show your phone who is boss"?

5. The Christians in Jerusalem escaped the destruction of 70 AD because they recognized Jesus' prophecy and followed His instructions. In what area of your life do you know what Scripture teaches but have been slow to obey? What would it look like to trust Jesus' words enough to act on them this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Deuteronomy 28:45-57 — This passage contains the covenant curses Moses pronounced that Jesus said were fulfilled in Jerusalem's destruction, showing God's faithfulness to His word in both blessing and judgment.

2. 2 Peter 3:1-13 — Peter echoes Jesus' teaching about the day of the Lord coming unexpectedly and the passing away of heaven and earth, while calling believers to holy living as they await new heavens and a new earth.

3. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 — Paul instructs believers to stay sober and watchful because the day of the Lord comes like a thief, reinforcing Jesus' call to spiritual alertness in Luke 21.

4. Jeremiah 31:27-34 — This prophecy of the new covenant, referenced in the sermon, shows how God promised to watch over His people to build and plant, and to write His law on their hearts.

5. Matthew 24:36-51 — Matthew's parallel account of Jesus' teaching includes the parable of the faithful and unfaithful servants, expanding on what it means to watch and be ready for the Master's return.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Value of Knowing the Future Accurately

II. Watch the Signs (Luke 21:5-24)

III. Watch for the Son (Luke 21:25-33)

IV. Watch Yourself (Luke 21:34-38)

V. God Watches Over Those Who Trust in Him

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I don't make predictions. I never have, and I never will.

So said British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It's a hazardous hobby making predictions, isn't it? In 1823, 200 years ago, Dionysius Lardner, an Irish professor of astronomy, wrote that rail travel at high speeds is not possible because Passengers unable to breathe would die of asphyxia.

100 years later in 1923, Nobel Prize winning physicist Robert Millikan claimed, There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.

Well friend, I could spend five minutes up here giving you predictions that were said with great credentials and great confidence that in fact did not come true.

What would you pay to know the future accurately? Tomorrow's headlines today, what would it be worth to you?

What difference would it make? The future means change. Things do not always remain the same. I mean, in our own lifetime, communication is replacing commuting. In the lifetimes of some of us here, we can remember phones going from our walls to our pockets.

I typed my undergrad papers on a typewriter. Some of you don't know what a typewriter is. Change is always a part of the future.

What more change is coming? In our day, technological change actually pushes moral change. We are interested in knowing what tomorrow will bring. We have some ideas about future change in general terms, but what if we knew specifically so that we could make decisions that would affect our lives? So, for example, when you look backwards, you know there are certain events that you can't help but think, well, if only.

If only I hadn't done this small thing, then that wouldn't have happened, and that wouldn't have happened, and that wouldn't have happened, if only. And you see how significant days and actions are. Friends, in the same way, if you could look forward into the future, knowing the significance of this act or that act, how might it change? What you would choose to do. How much would that kind of knowledge be worth to you?

What if we could look forward and know what decisions we're making today would mean for tomorrow and even forever?

The truth is, in the most important way, we can. Jesus brought us exactly this kind of knowledge of the future. In one of his last days of public teaching in the evening with his disciples, after his long day of disputing publicly, Jesus and his disciples had walked back out of the city to where they were staying. You see this daily rhythm of the Passover pilgrims at the very end of our passage this morning in Luke chapter 21. Let me invite you to turn there now, Luke chapter 21.

If you don't have a Bible that you can read, you'll find the Bible the Bibles around you here, you should feel free and take one of those home with you as a gift from our church to you. If you're not used to looking at a Bible, the chapter numbers are the larger numbers, the verse numbers are the smaller numbers. So we're looking at Luke chapter 21 and I'm drawing your attention to the very end of that chapter, the last two verses, verses 37 and 38. Again, you'll find that on page 881 in the Bibles provided. Look there, Luke 21:37, and every day He was teaching in the temple, but at night He went out and lodged on the Mount called Olivet.

And early in the morning all the people came to Him in the temple to hear Him. So there you have it, the normal daily routine of the pilgrim coming to Jerusalem at Passover. In the city, especially at the center court of Herod's great temple during the day, and then as the sun starts to set, exiting the city to one of the surrounding places, the kind of suburbs outside the city gates where they could stay. Well, in Jesus' case, he and his disciples were staying on the Mount of Olives, immediately opposite the Temple Mount, probably with some carpets cast on the ground and some tents over their heads. In the morning they would go in with all the other pilgrims, and there early he would begin teaching in the temple courts.

In our passage today we have a report of something that He and the disciples said probably at the end of the day. Looking across the valley, back at the temple, standing on the temple mount with Jerusalem spread out behind, some of the disciples said, well look up in verse 5, Some were speaking of the temple how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings I mean, this was a completely normal thing to talk about. The temple was a remarkable structure. It was not the kind of thing one normally saw wherever you were from. There weren't buildings like that in many places at all.

The temple had for a thousand years been at the center of the Jewish nation. Solomon had, of course, built the first one on the site, but it had been destroyed in 587 BC by the Babylonians. When the people had returned from the exile, they had built a smaller one around 515 B.C. But a few decades before this evening when Jesus and the disciples were standing and looking at it, Herod the Great had massively reconstructed the temple, beginning around 20 B.C. And it was operational within a few years, but it continued to be expanded and worked on decade after decade.

In fact, when the disciples were there commenting on it, it would still be worked on for three more decades. Before it was finally completed. And when completed, it was more magnificent even than Solomon's Temple had been.

Josephus, a late first century Jewish historian, tells us that the temple was built of stones that were white and strong, and each of their length was 25 cubits. Think of a cubit, it's like a foot and a half. 25 cubits, their height was eight. And their breadth about 12. Friends, the splendor of this building, even from a great distance, up on a height as it was, was breathtaking.

Anyway, it's in this conversation with Peter, James, John, and Andrew that Jesus foretold the future in a way that was to be so accurate it would immediately affect thousands of people's lives just within a few decades and has continued to ever since.

In His famous foretelling, Jesus instructs His disciples to watch three things. This will be the structure of the message. To watch three things.

First, to watch the signs. To watch the signs. Second, to watch for the Son. To watch for the Son. And third, to watch themselves.

To watch themselves. So let's go through this chapter now and I pray that as we do, we will hear His instructions and follow them. First, we see that we should watch for signs. I mean, this is how the whole conversation happens. Look there in chapter 21, verses 5 to 7.

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? You see what Jesus is doing here. If you've been following along in this series, or even if you've been reading Luke's Gospel, you're familiar with it.

You see, Jesus is doing here what he had been doing all day long in the temple. He's taking the obvious things, things that they're commenting on, how grand it is, and he's showing that what appears to be the case is not necessarily the case. These great stones, so massive, soon he says not one will be left standing on another. He takes the most obvious truth, the massive permanence of this structure. And he says, this that you marvel at right now will soon be nothing.

Doesn't that sound like Jesus? It sounds like what we've seen him doing all throughout this 21st chapter in Luke and in fact through Luke more generally. If we read a little bit further down in this chapter, we see that it wasn't just a temple. Jesus was saying would be destroyed, it was all of Jerusalem. Look down to verse 20.

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you 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 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 against 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. I'm just going to stop there because when I go to, Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, I'm getting into something else.

So I think what he's talking about there is what we see language used elsewhere in Scriptures about the time when the nations hear the gospel. And so from the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, soon after this at Pentecost, after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, till the return of Christ is that time of the Gentiles. That's when the nations are hearing the good news. But now he's talking about something's going to happen very soon. He says 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, the nations.

So you see, Jesus wasn't merely foretelling the destruction of the temple, but of all Jerusalem, and it actually happened a few decades later. If you're a long time church attender, you've heard this many times, but if you're new to looking at Christianity, this may shock you. Jesus is more accurate than Nostradamus. I mean, Jesus doesn't get a lot of air time for this, part of his ministry. But Jesus is the most shockingly accurate predictor of the most extraordinary things that you can ever imagine.

From his own crucifixion and resurrection to the literal physical military destruction of a giant building and in fact the whole fortified hilltop city that it was a part of. In 70 A.D., Titus, Roman general, son of the Emperor Vespasian, sacked Jerusalem. He burnt the temple at the end of 70 A.D. He had been leading an armed suppression of a Jewish revolt for several years. If you've ever been to Rome, you've seen the Arch of Titus, or you can visit it, where there are pictures of things being carried out of Jerusalem.

You can see a visual reminder of it. Jerusalem was destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed. 97,000 were taken prisoner. Jesus' words here are so descriptive of the fall of Jerusalem that the kind of people who taught me religion at Duke University knew Jesus could not have said this.

Because of course Jesus couldn't know the future. And this was so accurate that it must have been made up.

Well friends, you can do that or you can read history responsibly. You can take the sources as they come to you. You can decide not to begin with a secular naturalistic worldview but realize you don't have all knowledge and it's possible there is a God. And if there is a God, He can do things supernaturally, including sending His own Son and revealing the truth about the future, which is what the text says happened here. So here we have this prediction by Jesus, and we see in history it's fulfilled.

You may remember from Deuteronomy chapter 28 that when Moses was giving his final words to the children of Israel before they crossed over into the Promised Land, in chapter 28 he sets out blessings, and then he sets out the most hair-raising cursings. Maybe make a note to read it this afternoon. It's there throughout chapter 28 of Deuteronomy. What would happen if they did not follow the Lord once he gave them the city and the country, rather? Well, for 1500 years, God's people did not obey him in the land.

And now, as Jesus says here in Luke chapter 21 verse 22, For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. The disobedience of the nation would finally be met with the curses of Deuteronomy chapter 28. Let me just read one verse from Deuteronomy 28 to give you an idea of how accurate this description is of what happened. Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 49. I could read you 40 verses.

Let me just pick verse 49. The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down.

If you keep reading, you find that curses promised include sieges and imprisonment, starvation and deportation, all of which happened in 70 A.D. With force, Jesus says in verse 23 that those would be days of great distress. If you add the Roman historian Tacitus in his recounting to the Jewish historian Josephus, you see the description of the destruction of the temple was a catastrophe of almost superhuman proportions. According to Josephus, the suffering was unparalleled. From 67 to 70 AD, there would be as many as 500,000 Two crucifixions per day of Jews captured by the Romans. As many as 600,000 Jews were in Jerusalem at any one time as the population of almost the whole nation seemed to have contracted into its capital in order to defend it.

More may have died from internal battlings about whether or not to negotiate. And actually from the Romans themselves. Totals killed are estimated to be literally about a million people, but almost no Christians. In the literal cradle of Christianity, Jerusalem, where the crucifixion, resurrection and Pentecost all happened, the church began with thousands of adherents. It is specifically recorded that in this slaughter, almost no Christians were killed because according to ancient historians like Josephus and Eusebius, the Christians all left Jerusalem when the Roman legions came in 67 A.D. to lay siege.

Why? Did they all leave Jerusalem? Because they recognized this lining up with the prophecy of Jesus about the destruction of the temple here in Luke 21. So precise was the description, so clear were his instructions, that they simply followed them. And it resulted in a singular omission in the death count of the thousands of Christians.

Why would Jesus prophesy about the temple like this in particular? Because Jerusalem and the temple itself had been the focus of the Jewish nation's hopes. To see Jerusalem and especially the temple destroyed was to see the irrefutable verdict of God on the nation. It was also to clear the decks and turn their attention to the true temple where God was even more fully with man.

Jesus Himself. Friends, in biblical theological terms, this is the divorce of Jerusalem. God's vengeance, as it says here in verse 22, the adulterous people had turned into a religious whore and would even murder the Son of God. Just as the Garden of Eden before the place of chief blessing becomes the epitome of God's judgment on His people, So too here, Jerusalem, now the chief place of God's favor in revealing himself to his people, would become now the chief place of God's terrible judgments against those who had been unfaithful to him. Jesus here promised the destruction of Jerusalem.

He promised it would fall. This whole chapter is full of irony and reversal. The chosen people unchosen, those apparently People persecuting those apparently God's people, persecuting those who are really God's people. The temple made to symbolize God's presence, actively pursuing His absence. I mean, this tragedy continues.

The Lord had prophesied 1,500 years earlier when His people first entered the Promised Land that He would throw them out if they were unfaithful. Even in judgment, God was being most terribly faithful in keeping His Word and making good on His promises. But much of the language in Jesus' teaching, chapter 21 that's recorded here, is speaking of judgments beyond simply the destruction of the temple or even of Jerusalem. It's speaking of a more long-lasting, ongoing groaning of creation, really from the fall until its final resolution. You know, prophecy in the Bible, it's often noted, has the effect of showing us one appearance when we view it from a distance, but then when we begin to live into the prophecies and some are fulfilled, but not all, it's more like looking at a mountain range or a couple of mountain ranges from a distance.

At first they may all seem like they're happening at the same time, but then when you pass 70 A.D. when you see that marked prediction fulfilled, it happens, and yet you see other things that were predicted have not yet happened. You begin to see we're living in this time here between this one that has been fulfilled and these that will be fulfilled, including some that are being fulfilled throughout history. That's really how we should read a lot of this passage, I think, about these two clear events, the destruction of the temple and the return of Christ. There's this time in between. Listen to Jesus' description of it here.

In Luke 21, look at verse 8, beginning at verse 8. 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.

Just quick to save me some time at the door, verse 16, Some of you they will put to death. Verse 18, Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. I think they will be put to death is referring to literally to some of the physical deaths that some of the people before him were about to suffer. What he's saying in verses 18 and 19 is that they themselves will survive, that they will prosper, that they will persevere in personally knowing the Lord.

There is a life, a soul beyond the body that is preserved. And that's what I think those expressions are getting to. Anyway, you see this language of Jesus here. People have asked a lot of questions about verse 32. If you look down at verses 29 to 32, he gives this parable.

He told them a parable, verse 29, Look at the fig tree and all the trees. As soon as they've come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.

Will not pass away until all has taken place. What does that mean? Well, there have been various explanations of that. Some people have thought that this meant that Jesus was promising His disciples that they would see His second coming. But you and I know that that hasn't happened.

And in fact, they knew that didn't happen. And they still wrote down this gospel in Matthew and Mark. They circulated them, they believed them. So obviously that was not what he meant or what they originally understood him to mean. The disciples wouldn't have kept following someone who was so basically wrong, so evidently.

They wouldn't have circulated the saying in Luke and Mark and Matthew if they had understood Jesus to be wrong like that. So what did they understand him to mean when he said this?

Some have thought it means just that the final generation would see these signs. Whoever that generation would be, it's a reference to that. And that could be. That's one way to read it. I think the point is more clear if we take it as him talking specifically about the fall of Jerusalem, not the return of Christ there.

Now Jerusalem's fall was a type of the return of Christ. But in verse 36, when he refers to all these things that are going to take place, I think that was in reference to the fall of Jerusalem, because if it's about the second coming, they're not going to escape the Second Coming. So the escape is in reference to these events of 70 AD. So if Jesus was referring to the fall of Jerusalem, then that generation was a literal one and they did see it. And this would be in fact such a striking prediction and fulfillment that no wonder it would make its way into Luke's gospel and Mark's gospel and Matthew's gospel.

God's judgment of Jerusalem was a type of His judgment on the whole world, His judgment that we experience regularly through the disorder of creation, through the pains of this life, the reality of death, all of which point toward that final reckoning that we will all face before God Himself. Friends, the fallenness of this world is a weekly, daily reality. If you've come this morning struggling with that, remember that precious promise Jesus gave One of the last words of His disciples when He said at the end of Matthew's gospel, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. He knew what He was promising there. He knew of our need that we would need to know that He would never leave us or forsake us, even through these kinds of trials that He predicted here.

In fact, verse 13 lets us know that these very trials are our opportunities to bear witness. Did you notice that in verse 13? How many times have we seen this be the case? In the history of the church, you think of Stephen's martyrdom in Acts chapter 7, all the way down through biographies you may love of people faithfully bearing witness, Thomas Cranmer standing there before the prejudiced people who would kill him and take his life because of his affirmation of justification by faith alone. All the way down to Corryton, Boom, so many other people in your own life that you've known, maybe you.

You've seen times in your own life when you were under threat, where there was persecution, where there was misfortune, where there were terrible things, and yet those very things became literal opportunities for you to bear witness. How many times does the hope the Christian have in a very dark day strike non-Christians around us? Cause them to wonder, what do we know? What do we understand? What hope do we have that they don't have?

Could they have it too? Friends, notice verse 13. Relish verse 13.

If you're in a deep trial, I can't make it seem like it's not a trial, but I can tell you it is also an opportunity. It is an opportunity for you to bear witness to God's sufficiency, to His faithfulness in Christ.

Sometimes people get all tied up in trying to figure out exact dates and times, turning the Bible into a kind of fortune teller or Ouija board. Jesus is far more concerned that His followers be generally prepared so that they will be able to endure. As He says here in verse 19, By your endurance you will gain your lives. Persevere in the ways of God, trusting in Jesus, resting on His promises, knowing His words and believing Him. I pray that each disciple here will find that kind of patient, simple joy that there is an increasingly trusting Him through afflictions, as we were singing about earlier, through reproaches, through indignities, through persecutions.

May we learn to say with Paul, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. So friends, we watch for these signs which remind us that this world is passing and the end is coming.

But we should especially, second thing, watch for the Son. We should especially watch for the Son. You see, part of what Jesus had been teaching the disciples throughout his time with them was that the current Jewish expectations of the Messiah were distorted. They had strained out the suffering servant as Passover, substitutionary sacrifice for them, and had remembered only the royal son of David reestablishing the national throne, thinking how they would be delivered from Rome and the overlords that the Roman troops were.

So Jesus had brought forward what was then His messianic task, to give His life as a ransom for many. That's why He had come this time. But that never meant that His immediate task was His only task. He had come to give His life as a ransom for many. But that did not mean He would never come to reign.

Look at verse 33.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Brothers and sisters, we could spend a whole sermon just on that sentence. Heaven passing away does not mean the presence of God passing away, vanishing, but rather the heavens, the skies that we see, the heavenly bodies passing away when the earth itself does, like the Jerusalem temple, though on a far more vast scale. The Bible has always taught us that this creation is not eternal. This building as well as we maintain it will not stand forever.

You think of 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 10, the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Jesus was teaching here about that day and this is the day that we so often sing about, and where shall I be? Or look ye saints, the sight is glorious. Or lo he comes with clouds descending. All those hymns which for some reason we did not think of singing this morning.

Or as we hope to sing tonight on Jordan's stormy banks we stand, closing with Jerusalem, my happy home. We rejoice in the hope that we have. Or as we did sing already today, When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in him be found, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. Our times together pulsate with this hope of rest beyond the river. Notice here in verse 33 too that Jesus was saying that His own words would last longer not only than the temple they were looking at, but longer than the ground they were standing on.

Consider who Jesus is saying He is. He didn't just say the Lord's words, he said my words. He means us to understand that as a claim of divinity. The Word of God does not change. When he sang of its utter reliability, its unchanging nature in the hymn, How Firm a Foundation, just a little while ago, and what a firm foundation it is, so many matters which confuse our world today are illuminated by God through his Word, like human beings being made male or female, God being holy and people being fallen.

The very truths that we're considering in this message, all of this we find taught in God's Word. So young people, whether or not you're nine or nineteen, young people, let me just exhort you to read God's Word.

Those of us who were nineteen a long time ago, we needed to read it then. But if it's possible to say this, you need to read it even more now. You are being taught stuff that is even more uncommon knowledge these days than we would have thought possible when I was 19. So young people, you're gonna get stuff from your Bible you're not gonna get anywhere else. Read your Bible.

Get to know your Bible. Have a kind of wisdom that marks you out from all the people around you. God is presented as good and bad, as bad, women as women and men as men. God one way, humanity with our physical and moral limitations, another. Anyway, this time of heaven and earth is passing away, and when it would pass away would be the time of Christ's return.

That's what He was predicting. Look there at verse 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. And here's the future part, the second half part, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars and on the earth distress of nations, in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world for the powers of the heavens will be shaken and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Christ has promised to come again as a King to redeem us. That is to fully and finally deliver us, just as He came the first time in humility through the virgin's womb, this time He would come again in power and great glory on the clouds of heaven as the risen reigning and returning King. How does knowing this distinguish you? Some people fear such a thought of a being that knows everything, a being from whom nothing is hidden. This is an absolute stunning thought to so many people in our world today.

In the world I grew up in, it was a more commonplace thought. That there was such a being. In fact, looking around, I was able to find a clip and rewatch the clip of Leave it to Beaver in the first season where June is talking to her son Theodore, called the Beaver, Beaver, and the Beaver has just lied about something. And June, his mom, is horrified at this. And she says, Even when you think you're getting away with it, God knows you're lying.

And Beaver says, How? Mrs. Cleaver says, Because God knows everything. He sees everything. Yes, this catechizing was going on on ABC in primetime. Beaver looks up and asks, Right through the roof?

Mrs. Cleaver says reassuringly, Right through the roof. Beaver, being the inquisitive young man he was, Right through the ceiling? Mrs. Cleaver, and through the ceiling. Beaver, would God see me if I hid in the closet? Mrs. Cleaver says, Yes, Beaver.

You see, God is everywhere. Well, we could keep going with that, but you get the idea. There is a being, God, who knows everything, from whom nothing is hidden. And this is what we find we will all face personally at the return of Christ. There is a being from whom no evidence can be hidden.

No just trial can be absented, no right verdict perverted. There is one who knows all. The end of the world is the beginning of a whole new chapter. In human history. The power and the glory and will finally and visibly not belong to Rome or to the United States or to any other interim power, but to the Lord God himself.

The most important aspect of the end of the world is not anything in the world of politics. It's not death and destruction and rapture. It's not armies and Armageddon or the Antichrist or the United Nations. The most important aspect of the end of the world is the return of Christ. The end of the world happens at the visible bodily second coming of Christ.

And for us as Christians, it's a wonderful time when our redemption from sin, the redemption that's been provided by the blood of Christ that we've sung about this morning, that's already been begun by His Spirit's giving us new birth and indwelling us, our redemption from sin will finally be completed. Look again at verse 28. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. This redemption is this buying out, bringing out of, and that's what Christ has been doing with the people who trust him and believe his promises. He has delivered us from God's just punishment of sin that loomed ahead of us.

And he's delivering us already from sin's power in our lives as his Holy Spirit challenges sin's power in this area of our life and that area of our life. But the day is coming when sin's power will finally and fully be vanquished, when our redemption, our liberation, will be completed when there will be no shard left of the God-opposing powers in us. And that is part of this vision, the end that Jesus taught his disciples here. Friends, if you're here and you're not a Christian, I hope that you understand that this Christian hope that we have is not one fundamentally of earthly circumstances being good or even generally good.

Or perhaps having some hope in a very personal way. But we have a hope in Christ and in His promises to us that we are confident that He will keep His Word. And that involves Him forgiving us for our sins, knowing us completely and truly, and accepting us as His own child, as His own beloved one. Not because we've lived up to something, but because Christ has died for everyone who will turn from their sins and trust in him. And this can be you.

You can turn from your sins and trust in him. Oh, pray that God help you to do that. Talk to the person you came with, or you're sitting around, or talk to any of us at the door on the way out afterwards. We would love to talk to you about this hope in Christ. So watch for the sun.

Watch for the signs when these things would be, and watch for the Son. But Jesus tells us also to watch yourself. That's the third thing. Watch yourself, that you may not be trapped, but that you may stand before the Lord. Look there, that last paragraph in our passage, verses 34 to 38.

Luke 21:34 to 38. But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap, for it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man. And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the Mount called Olivet, and early in the morning all the people came to him in the temple to hear him. The end of the world will certainly come whenever it does as a surprise to you if your heart is captured by the concerns of this life.

Did you note Christ's warning in verse 34?

But watch yourselves lest your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. It seems that the surest way for us to be prepared for Christ's return is not so much to study the signs and pick up the latest tremors and figure out where terrible earthquakes fit in God's prophetic timetable. But to have hearts unburdened with the stupefying effects of living wasted lives for passing things, being lost in an alcohol escape or faithless in anxiety. Dissipation is carelessly pursuing pleasure, wasting money, indulging vices, acting in such a way that is really ignoring your health and well-being. Beware of how Satan can use pleasure to entrap us.

Pleasure itself is good, but in our fallen world and with our fallen hearts, it attaches itself to the wrong things sometimes. And so we have to be discerning. We can't finally be simply guided by our own pleasure in an immediate sense, but we have to interrogate. Those things that our heart loves, those things that we prefer or even simply like. What we want instead is a heart trained on God and on what He says is good, on a carefulness and a trust in Him.

That will be the surest way to be prepared for Christ's return, even if it is today. So pray that God make you more certain of Christ's return and of the truth of His claims. We should be careful in our living, not just in our doctrine. We want to know when the false prophet says, Hey, follow me, I'm the Christ. No, don't listen to them.

But we also want to be careful in our living, just like Paul told Timothy. So there's the warning we just considered in verse 34 about letting our hearts be captivated by things that will simply waste our lives, or by drinking, or by more religiously respectable worrying.

Interesting how Jesus lines up being weighed down with anxiety and drunkenness here. Have you ever considered the similarity of the two? Being careful in our living doesn't mean being sad or sullen, paranoid or suspicious, but it does mean living in such a way that we are careful not to give our hearts away to passing things that we consider before we love. Don't use grace as an excuse to be a kind of spiritual daredevil, you know, just to see how you can test God by getting close to the spiritual edge without going over into sin. That's why Jesus tells us here in verse 36 that we're to stay awake at all times, we're to be careful.

And how we live in this world. Do you know what doom scrolling is?

My guess is those of you who are younger know more than those who are older. It's using your phone and particularly scrolling on your social media as if you're going to do it minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day till the very end of time. Doom scrolling. That's what takes you staying up late at night or gets you up early in the morning or eats up your breaks at work. Friends, show your phone who is boss.

Don't do that. Don't live carelessly. Staying awake that Jesus exhorts us to here in this world includes our stewardship of time, and of our influences on others. In my position as a Christian and a pastor, I felt unusually responsible for my use of social media. So I got off of my social media early this year in part because I became concerned that I was being a bad influence on others.

Not in any intentional way, but I had people ask me why I was following this person, which may have been saying or doing some things I didn't even know of, I wasn't aware of.

Or why I wasn't following them. I saw people savaged for things they said or didn't say in 140 characters. On Instagram particularly, I saw a growing sensuousness which concerned me and I became concerned that I may have wrongly led some of you to invest time or effort in the media or to have carelessly followed some people that at least according to parts of their accounts, it would be better to not follow. So if I have misled you in any of these ways, please forgive me. We need to stay awake with every part of our life.

Watch yourself. Peter lived like this. He wrote in 1 Peter 1:13, Preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. If you're looking to set your hope fully On that grace, brother or sister, you must give time each day to prayer. Prayer seems to be the particular means Jesus points out here.

We should live praying to God. Did you notice that here in verse 36? Praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. Brothers and sisters, we are to be prayerful. Now you say, Mark, that's funny because prayer is one of the times I most easily fall asleep.

Well, that's not exactly what Jesus means here. Jesus is talking not about your propensity to be tired and not rest enough and therefore you fall asleep and you stop doing very active things. He's talking about you're putting the spiritual effort into trying to stay awake spiritually, even if you nap sometimes during your spiritual awakened state. And prayer is one of those ways that you most wake yourself. Prayer is putting things again and again before God and His Word and His priorities and His values, His read on the truth.

So, friend, you must give time to prayer if you would stay awake spiritually in the way we're being exhorted to. You can tell Peter heard this because in 1 Peter 4:7 he says almost exactly this. He says, the end of all things is at hand. Therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

Why we pray, what we pray about, how we pray, all of these are important matters. I wonder how much time you give to thinking about how you pray. Friend, I'm telling you that's important for your own discipleship of Christ. It's also important for you if you're discipling others. Husbands, this is important for you to consider as you love your wife.

How are you teaching your wife to pray? Parents, it's important for you as you teach your children as they grow up. Are they learning from you how to pray? What are they learning from you about prayer? Kids, when you go home today at lunch, ask your parents what they mean to be teaching you about prayer.

Simple question. Try to get that in your mind, ask them. What they mean to be teaching you about prayer. It's a good conversation to have. My non-Christian friend, verse 35 says, All who dwell upon the face of the earth.

We're thinking about this at Bible study Wednesday night, Romans 14:12, so then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Friends, because of this serious accounting that we're all going to have, we should all be praying. Come tonight at 5:00. Learn to pray from listening to each other pray. We meet to consider whether it's Bible study on Wednesday night or here in this message or praying on Sunday nights, we meet to try to encourage each other in watchfulness.

So again, my non-Christian friend, if you're coming to a Christian church in order to see how you can make your life good enough for God, you will completely fail. Your good life will be only as worthwhile as a Kleenex landing on the surface of the sun. When you come into the presence of a holy God, there's nothing in you and me to commend ourselves ultimately to God. It's only Christ's righteousness. That's what you need.

You need His substitutionary sacrifice for your sins and His righteous life provided for yours. My Christian friend, instead of sleeping and paying no attention to your own spiritual state or to the dangers around you, give some time reflecting over this. Watch over your principles, your heart, your thoughts, your affections, your tongue, your senses, your feet, your graces, your duties, your accomplishments, your lusts, your sins. How can you guard yourself against the appearance of evil, against occasions that will tempt you or others to sin? These snares are laid for us everywhere.

We do not live in a spiritually neutral world, do we? To this end, Jesus calls us not only to watch for the signs and to watch for the Son, but to watch ourselves.

So we've seen that we should watch for these signs, what Jesus calls these things, like we watch for the first signs of the colors changing on the leaves in the fall or for the cherry blossoms in the spring. Ultimately we should watch for the Son of Man to return, to be prepared for His return. We should watch ourselves too. Now that's a lot of watching. You've come to a Christian church today and you've got one one wheelbarrow full of imperatives to watch.

And I just want to point out, they come from Jesus. So he is the one who tells those who would follow him to watch.

So we meet here at the beginning of every week in order to stir one another up to love and good deeds as we continue to wait and watch, to pray and sing and read. But besides this, as we read the Bible, we do read in Psalm 33:18 that the Lord watches over us. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love. We read the Lord speaking of this to His people in Jeremiah 31: and it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring harm, so I I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. Will put My law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Brothers and sisters, we must watch. That is true. But an even greater truth to remember today is that God watches over us. As Jesus was about to teach all that the Father had given Him, He had kept.

As Richard Sibbes said, We are more safe in His comprehending of us than in our clasping and holding of Him. As we say of the mother and the child, both hold, but the safety of the child is that the mother holds him.

I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in Me thine all in all. Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that yout would help us to watch so that we may stand. Teach us to rely on the Lord Jesus fully. We ask in His name. Amen.