Fair Warning - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

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We’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this year.

The last time we looked at three themes from Mark 12. Jesus established the guilt of the religious leaders for allowing Israel to fall away from God, then we looked at how Jesus disarmed the traps of the religious leaders and finally we took a look at the danger of reliance on the external signs of success and religion to justify ourselves.

Today we’re going to look at Mark chapter 13 which in the last 40 years or so has become one of the most controversial, and at least in my opinion, one of the most misused passages of scripture in the Bible.

How many of you were active believers in the 70’s and early 80’s? What was the most talked about topic during those years? There was a surge in Charismatic ideas and the health and wealth gospel but both of those were tied to the end times narrative. I can remember ‘rapture drills’ that feeling of fear when you thought the rapture happened and you were left behind. Songs, movies and so many other things convinced us that we were in the last days.

It was at that time that this passage and others became front and center in preaching and teaching. The problem was that they were often used without considering their context and they were often used to support the particular belief or bias of the teacher.

This morning I’m going to attempt to share this passage without allowing my particular bias about the end times influence how we look at it. Of course since I’m not a machine some of my bias will get in there but we’ll give it a go.

Even today there is curiosity about when the ‘end of days’ will come. In 1988 there was a book called “88 Reasons the Lord will Return in 1988” then of course we all remember the Y2K scare.

Now apparently we have a good date to work with thanks to the Mayan calendar. We now know the world will end in 2012, the only question I have about that is if the Mayan’s were so good at predicting the future how come they disappeared? Why didn’t they see that coming?

So here’s what we know: The world will end in 2012, prince Charles is the anti-Christ, and Ronald McDonald is the false prophet. What? You didn’t know that last one? OK so none of these things are true, but one thing we know for sure is that someone is going to get the date right at some point because at the beginning of each year someone will predict its this year.

Enough of that, let’s get to the Scripture.

Let’s read the first section Mark 13:1-37….

Let get something out of the way right now: Jesus was not trying to predict, set a date, or even give a specific list of things that would tell us when the ‘end’ would come. I think vs. 32 makes that clear.

So the question we have to consider is ‘Why did Jesus say this?’ What was the point?

If you look at what is happening here Jesus is going to be crucified in a couple of days and His disciples won’t have His continued physical presence to guide them. In fact they will have to rely on a new ‘Helper,’ the Holy Spirit to guide them (vs. 11) and it will take them some time to get used to this new way of doing things. Add to this that people have an addiction to their own flesh which fights against the Spirit and life can get very confusing sometimes. Jesus knew what they were facing and He takes this time to give them some warnings about what to watch for in the future.

But this passage is interesting in another way because it’s clear that Jesus is speaking to a larger future audience than just this group of 12 disciples. He’s speaking to His disciples of all ages to come because He knew that we would all face scary and confusing times and the things mentioned in this passage would be true of every age to come.

With this in mind I believe Jesus is giving His disciples fair warning of 4 spiritual dangers:

Dependence on religious or political power for security. Both are man made attempts to create security. The Jerusalem temple represented both of those things to the people. The other name for the temple was ‘Herod’s Temple’ because he was the one who used his political skill to gain permission from Rome to build the temple for the people to use in worship. It was a symbol of the merging of religious and political power.

Jesus warns the disciples that this temple and all it represents will be torn down and destroyed leaving all of those who look at it for their hope devastated, crushed and without hope.

This warning is just as important today. If our faith is placed in anything or anyone but Jesus we are in trouble.

Deception by false messiahs. False messiah’s have been around for 2,000 years. Paul encounters a false Messiah named ‘Bar-Jesus’ on His first missionary journey and that was only 20 or so years after Jesus ascended to Heaven. Today we have cults all over the world who claim to have a new revelation or a new way deceiving many, even some that were followers of Jesus. Be careful who you listen to and make sure they are teaching and living the Bible. They won’t be perfect but they will be honest, accountable, and humble.

You need to consider carefully what the teachers you follow are saying in the light of Scripture. Keep in mind there will always be some differences of opinion about some things but a trustworthy teacher will never claim that their ‘truth’ is above question.

Distraction by world turmoil. This week in Haiti, and for that matter these past 8-9 years we’ve experienced some of the most traumatic events we’ve ever seen. Unless you consider the Great Depression, the Dark Ages and black death that wiped out almost ½ the population of Europe, 2 world wars and the Holocaust, the Civil War and slave trade, etc. etc. The point isn’t to dismiss or diminish the tragic and turbulent times we’re in now but to show that there will always be tragic and turbulent events in the world that can either distract and consume us or help us to focus on being salt and light in dark times.

Discouraged by the severity of persecution. In America by the grace of God we’ve been spared persecution for our faith. The thing we fear the most in America is people making fun of us or being disrespected. But there are places in our world where people face real persecution, and even death for their faith.

Again we aren’t dismissing the possibility that things will get worse and more widespread, but persecution of Jesus’ followers has been around since Jesus came. In fact the first persecution was when Herod murdered the infants in Bethlehem trying to kill Jesus.

The early church believed they were living in the last days. The apostles all lived and taught that Jesus’ return was immanent and they based that belief on what Jesus had warned them about. The apostles continued to remind the church not to hide in fear or get caught up in the distractions and the deceptions of their day.

This created a sense of urgency and gave them a laser-like focus on taking the gospel to the ends of the earth and serving the sick and poor in their communities.

Jesus promised 2 things in this passage: The world won’t get better and Jesus will return. His return could be today it could be in 2012. No one knows the hour or the day and the Church, the followers of Jesus have a choice to make. Will we be absorbed in self pity and self protection because we fear the future OR will we be compelled to follow Jesus into the harvest fields of hurting, abused, and troubled people?

We have no excuse to be afraid or caught by surprise because Jesus has given us fair warning about what to expect but He also gave us this promise:

Vs. 26….. they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory..