Mark 13, 24-36 is His God’s Word. But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. And the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send out the angels and gather His elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. From the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near at the very gates.
Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the sun, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake, for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.”
Thus far God’s holy, inspired, and infallible Word, and it will please the Lord to take His Word and transform it in our lives into service for Himself. Thanks be to God. Heavenly Father, we pray now that indeed what you intend for us today will come to pass, especially, Lord, in our understanding and how we are to know how your word applies to us in our lives. We ask, Father, that we may know it for ourselves, but also have that with which we can share others and encourage them. We do pray, Lord, that you would lift us up, lift us up to heaven today in Jesus’ name. We’re at our third sermon on the Olivet Discourse, which I’ve entitled After Tribulation. You could break this down into a lot of parts, but I’ve tried to do it in three parts for us.
With the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, a new era was begun. but it involved a transition period as the New Testament church was organized and the first Christian missionaries were sent into the Gentile world. Then came the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple after which the transition was complete. And since then there has been a time of tribulation.” Now I know you hear some Bible expositors say, no, the tribulation won’t come until the very end, but I would impress upon you the fact that tribulation comes right away, which is part of what Jesus is saying here. that even when you see the temple destroyed and so forth, that’s just the beginning, the beginning of sorrows, he would say.
And it’s going to continue on until Jesus comes again, and you and I are right in the middle of it. So, we don’t know when the Lord’s coming back, but at least from our perspective, all these things have happened before us and probably will continue on after us. They will continue, as we say, until Jesus comes again. In the Olivet Discourse, which took place before Jesus was crucified, see this is not something that Jesus taught his disciples after his resurrection, this is before the resurrection, the Lord gave his disciples a broad outline as to how the transition would unfold, and that’s the Olivet Discourse, this broad outline that he gives them. Now, I doubt that they had pen and paper with them, so they had to keep it all up here, but that was the work of the Holy Spirit to help them to remember this outline, even as they were going forward in their lifetimes, but as they would pass it on to their disciples and the disciples of disciples and so forth, right on up until our time. So this is important for us as well as for them long ago. Jesus takes all Christians into a long, long era. And that’s where we are now.
And Mark’s Gospel, you see, the shortest of the Gospels, but Mark’s Gospel is a concise gathering of all the things that Jesus taught, but particularly in this important outline that he gave to his disciples. So, here’s kind of a short condensation of what Jesus had to say.
No one except the Father in heaven knows exactly when Christ will return. So, don’t guess. In my lifetime, there have been any number of men who said, the Lord is going to come back in 1979, or He’s going to come back at 3 o’clock on July the 14th, 1986. I just made that last one up, but that’s what you hear sometimes. The Lord will come back when God the Father says He’s to come back. The Lord in heaven, the Father knows that, but we’re told here even Jesus in His humanity anyway was not given that bit of knowledge.
Then from the temple’s destruction until the end of time, there will be fearful events. that shake heaven and earth. And that has both a figurative and a literal application. Things will shake heaven and earth in the sense that the world will seem to be falling apart. But it will also affect many people directly in their lives. The earth will shake and there will be wars and these kind of things. And that’s part of the outline.
And then finally, when the Lord does return, it will take us all by surprise. Now, that doesn’t mean that we can’t prepare for it. It just means that when it does happen, we won’t really know exactly what’s going on for at least the first millisecond there anyway. The point is that we should be ready. If we’re ready to die, well, we’re ready for the Lord to come back again. But if we happen to be alive when He comes back, it will surprise us. And so we should be ready all the time.
And so if you want a sort of a quick review of the Olivet Discourse, that’s it. Now today, we’re going to look at the sight of His appearing. And I thought maybe to write the word sign in there, but really it has to do with sight. So we’ll see. And then the signs, not sights, but the signs that keep us alert. Then he’s going to tell us this parable of the fig tree. And finally, the surprise ending, as we say. All right, let’s look at the site of his appearance.
I remember I was out in the Palm Springs some years ago, and it was 4th of July weekend, as I recall. And they had, well, maybe it was Labor Day, I don’t know, it was one of those holidays. But anyway, they had a flyover. And here came this B-2 bomber, you know, the stealth bomber. I’d never seen it before, but how amazing it was to see that thing flying over. And people were saying, look at that. And they weren’t saying, imagine in your mind what it would be if the B-2 flew over. No, there it was. It wasn’t an imagination. It was there. You could see it.
And I think that’s one of the things that Jesus is getting across here. you will see things in the days of His appearing and even in these days that we call the tribulation now that’s going on even before the last moment is here. Because tribulation, you see, will not have stopped. In other words, There was some people who would say that when the temple was destroyed, well, that was the end of the tribulation and there won’t be any more until he comes back again. But I think you can see that’s not possible. That’s not at all true.
There’s been tribulation all along. The difference is that for the most part in history, the tribulation has occurred over here, but over here, things are okay. And then tribulation comes over here, things get back to normal over there. That’s kind of the way things unfold. Well, the unsaved, regardless of what point in time we’re talking about, the unsaved will be in trouble.
Because generally speaking, the tribulation is going to take lives, take them. Now in some cases, God will take people to heaven in the midst of the tribulation. We may think God will preserve all Christians all the time, no matter what. But God says, no, I’m going to take some of my people to heaven with me.
But others, and I’m talking about the unsaved now, they’re suddenly going to see that they were all wrong, that they needed a Savior that they turned down and rejected, and they will bitterly wish that they had not rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. They will realize, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 that they have crucified the Lord of glory. Not that they were there necessarily, but in rejecting Him, they participated in what was represented in His crucifixion and His suffering for sinners.
We’re told that the angels will gather the believers from the east and the west, the north and the south. And I don’t think that means it’s going to be invisible to us. But we’ll see people coming to the Lord, maybe at the last second, the last minute, but people will be coming. The Lord will gather His people together. And again, those who are not among those that the angels are gathering for salvation will be among those that they’re gathering for judgment.
And this will be the one time that someone will say, there He is, and they’ll be right. because he said all those other times and say, look he’s there, look he’s there. They’re wrong. But there’s going to be one time, one time only, but there’s going to be one time when somebody says, there he is! And they just don’t feel it, they don’t just have a notion of it, but they’ll see him. They’ll see him coming on the clouds of heaven, the Bible says. Now, can I give you any more information than that? No, I don’t know any more than that. But He will be seen coming on the clouds of heaven. That’s what the Bible says. There He is.
Well, we move on then to the signs that keep us alert. Why does God have all these signs and these things take place? Well, the first reason, of course, is that over time He’s going to bring more and more people to believe, to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But, also for all of us, it’s going to benefit us to make us, just to be a little more alert, just to be more keenly aware of what is going on and of that final day when the Lord does appear. The last days began with Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. But mankind, you see, has been living on the edge, on the edge all that time.
Nobody really thinks much about that. Jesus said, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? You’re right on the edge. Have you got all your ducks in a row, as it were? Are you ready for that time? Some people say, no, it’s long. It’s not even coming. We don’t even believe in it. But the Bible says, always, every day, you and I are right on the edge. Will He come today? It’s not that He can’t come today. but that God has other plans for the moment. But whereas tribulation happens everywhere all the time, you better be ready because we’re living right on the edge. The day will arrive when the last elect person will come to faith in Christ.
And that’s a sign right there. What do I mean by that? I mean that every day, somewhere in the world, people are being saved. And that’s a sign. You want a sign that the Lord is coming back? Are people being saved? Yes, they are. We don’t always know where and exactly how. That is to say, whether it was this evangelist or this literature or whatever, but people are being saved. And that’s a sign. Give us a sign that the Lord is coming back. Are people being saved? Yes, they are. That’s a sign. Don’t discount that at all.
Now it says there will be signs in the heavens. And let me suggest to you, some of those signs are man-made. I remember going out one night and I saw something that literally made the hair on my back stand up and made me, and it was, turns out later, I found out it was a rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. But when I looked up, and this is the strangest thing I’d ever seen in the heavens.
It’s enough to give you the shakes. Alright, is the Lord coming back? Is this the end of the world? What’s going on here? There’ll be signs in the heavens. Just take that one sign. Isn’t that a sign? The Lord said, Don, be ready when I do come back. It’ll be more spectacular than that rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
And then, also, there will be some natural things that happen. Now, were they planned by God? Well, yes, of course, everything’s planned by Him, but are we saying that some star is going to explode? Are we saying that there might be a way that planets are aligned or something like that? That could happen, and that would be another thing to remind us, you know?
One day the Lord’s going to have everything lined up just right. One day there’s going to be something that will remind you that He is about to appear. You’re living on the edge, don’t forget, so be ready. Yeah, you’ll be a little frightened at first, but say, Lord, come. Even so, come, Lord Jesus, says in the book of Revelation. And then, I think also, it says that the Lord Himself may do some things that wouldn’t occur otherwise, except the Lord just does them, so that we’ll be alert and aware.
Now, at the same time, there’s imagery here. The nations of the earth will come under attack. The nations of the earth will engage in these wars and things. There will be earthquakes. There will be these things that are also taking place as well, so don’t discount them either. Some earthly signs are still going to be operative. Wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines. But there’ll also be something called a lack of attention. And Jesus, in I think it’s Matthew’s gospel, he says, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes.
And what were they doing then? Nothing. They were just eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Everything just seemed perfectly normal. That’s a sign. When everything is going just fine, just normal, that’s a sign. So, no matter where you turn, the Lord is giving you signs to tell you, be ready, be ready for His coming. He said, you do not know when the time will come. You do not know. But, there is a lot to keep you on guard. Even though you don’t know, when He says, be on guard, then absolutely be on guard.
Well, we move on then to the parable that Jesus told. We call it the parable of the fig tree. This is his first illustration that he uses. He’ll use another illustration that we’ll see in a moment. But he says, you know, when you see the fig tree start to leaf, put forth those green leaves, then you know what?
Summer is near. Well, when I was in school, when we took those exams in May and June, that was a sign that summer was near. We wanted to get out of school very badly. There are signs there that tell us, and there are signs here that the Lord also gives us. Well, the fact is, that there’s 11 disciples here, and maybe 12 if you count Judas Iscariot, but we’re kind of putting him off to the side a little bit.
But Jesus says, this generation, he talks about this generation will not pass away until you see all these things come to pass. Now, what do you mean by that? Well, the word for generation, genea, can mean a lot of things. It can mean an age, a period of time. It can mean a generation. It can mean a nation as a whole. It can mean time itself. It can mean a race, actually, that’s run, a certain fulfilling of a period of time. All these things could be meant by that. But let me suggest two things to you here.
First of all, He’s telling the disciples, and maybe just the 11 of them, of course, but telling His disciples that before you die, you’re going to see some very strange things. And He says that’s just the beginning. But you won’t pass away you’ll see these things come to pass and they’ll give you some assurance in your heart, yes, the Lord is beginning to work. Now, the Lord didn’t say, and your ancestors to the 12th and 13th generations will see them too, but at least for these disciples, they would see some of these things come to pass. He could have been saying that the Jewish people, will not pass away. And there have been many people who have tried to make them pass away over the years, but he says no. And then if you read that in connection with the book of Romans, you know there’s promise of God that there’ll be many Jews who come to faith in Christ.
So there’s a lot of ways that you could see this thing. This generation will not pass away until all these things come to pass. You just have to say, the Lord has a very broad application of that term here. He chooses all the words of the Bible. And this word, Yaneah, is the word to tell you that in your lifetime, in my lifetime, we’re going to see things just like those 11 disciples were going to see things in their lifetime. You and I are going to see life in that way too.
Now, let’s get on to the fig tree. The disciples had many questions to Jesus, and he thought telling them this parable would be helpful to them. Jesus says that all these things are to be compared to the fig tree. But you see, you could extrapolate from that without violating scripture at all, and you could talk about other trees. You could talk about the maple tree. Or you could talk about some tree that is a year-round tree, but at certain times it blossoms, and at certain times it doesn’t. But just plug it in to where you are in your situation.
And Jesus says all these signs that we’ve been talking about, all these things to make you keep alert, always think at the end of whatever you’re dealing with, summer is near. Summer is near. That the Lord is coming back. We’re living on the edge. We better not be like the days of Noah when we just kind of ignored history and we ignored what’s going on around us and we found scientific reasons for things in the heavens and all those sorts of things. Don’t be that way. Be like the people who say, look, the fig tree is about to bear fruit.
Summer is coming. and say, the Lord is coming. Maybe today, it may be a hundred years, who knows a thousand years from now, but the Lord is coming. Summer is near. We’re right on the edge. And if it pleased the Lord to take us out of some tribulation or just out of our bed at night sleep, we’re going to heaven. And that’s real summertime there. Real summertime.
Those who believe, that is, believe in Jesus, will accept the words of Jesus which are always up-to-date, always applicable, and never will pass away. Heaven and earth will pass away, he said, but my words to these eleven disciples, my words to everybody who hears me and reads about these words and so forth, for all of them, It’s never going to pass away. It’s always going to be just what you need at the right time. And ultimately, you’ll have the fulfillment of it in Christ, the parable of the fig tree. Well, we come then to the surprise ending, surprise ending.
Have you ever heard of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony? Almost nobody knows where the surprise is except music aficionados. But in the second movement, the symphony is going along very smoothly. Everyone is comforted. And all of a sudden, bam, the noise comes from the orchestra. That’s a surprise symphony. Well, this surprise is coming at the end, not in the second movement, but in the end.
The verses about the parable of the fig tree and so forth, they were just to remind the disciples, now don’t lose track of where you are, but now he says, do be excited about what God is going to do, even when a lot of people have no clue, even when you are sort of lulled along by the way the world’s going. He says something wonderful is going to happen, and it will be symphonic, it will be pleasant and glorious. when this comes along. The substance, you see, of the surprise is the kingdom. What’s the substance of the surprise?
The kingdom of God. When Jesus first began to preach, he preached the kingdom of God. This is what’s coming. And now time has moved on, but we’re still expecting that kingdom to be established. And that doesn’t surprise us so much as the timing, you see. That’s what makes it a real surprise. The Lord will surprise us. Just when we think not, your master comes, he said. Jesus is the Master who leaves His kingdom in the charge of His servants and expects everything to run smoothly, especially when He gets back and He finds the household, or if you will, the kingdom.
Everything is just going right along. And the kingdom in this sense would be the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there are heretics and problems in the church and so forth, but the true believers Just to keep sailing right on along. Just keep moving right toward the end. And yes, there’s a surprise connected to it. It’ll take us a moment to say, look what’s happening.
But the Lord says you’ll never lose the appreciation for it or your part in it. All of us, His servants, should be working together to bring in the elect because that’s the one sign that we’ll have a point of reference. But we don’t know who the last elect person is. We don’t know who the last one that God has chosen for Himself is. We don’t know that, so we just keep preaching the gospel. We just keep sailing along, moving along to that end.
When the Lord says, now the kingdom is complete, we’ll just say, wow, glad that’s over with. And the new kingdom, the new heavens, the new earth has begun. Well, just as a closing remark, curiosity, a lot of people are curious about the end of the world. Laziness, people don’t really care a flit about the kingdom of God, but that won’t get the job done, you see. Curiosity is helpful in some cases, and laziness is not helpful in any case. But neither will get the job done. Just keeping on faithfully serving the Lord, that’s what gets it done.
Being prepared, staying awake, and working faithfully. that will get the job done. So you see, that was the second illustration. The first illustration was the fig tree. The second illustration is the man who goes away, comes back, and he finds everything going just as he planned.
Let’s be prepared, Lord. Let’s be prepared. Help us, Lord Jesus, to be prepared for the Lord’s coming. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we pray your blessing upon us as we seek to be your servants in this changing, scary, uncertain world. In this world, Lord, where sometimes things seem to be just all calm and sweet and no problems, just help us to know we’re living on the edge no matter what. And then, Lord, when you call, when you appear, let us be ready and share in that glorious post-tribulation that you have for your people. In Jesus’ name, Amen.