Freshbrook Church Podcast | 15Mar26 | Passion | Phil Bailey

Phil Bailey continues our series of talks from the Gospel of Luke - Passion (How Jesus founded an everlasting kingdom upon love, humility and sacrifice).    

Today's passage is - Luke 21: 5 - 38.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Morning. This morning's reading is taken from Luke chapter 21. If you would, uh and it's on page 1056 of the Church Bibles. If you'd like a Bible to follow the um the sermon and the reading, please just raise your hand, and the stewards would be happy to bring that. Luke uh chapter 21, beginning to read at verse 5, page 1056 of the Church Bibles. Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts uh dedicated to God. But Jesus said, As for what you see here, the time will come when not one of these stones will be left on another, every one of them will be thrown down. Teacher, they asked, When will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place? He replied, Watch out that you are not deceived, for many will come in my name, claiming I am He, and the time is near. Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away. Then he said to them, Nations will rise against nations, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famine, and pestilence in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to the synagogues and put you in prison. You will be brought before kings and governors on account of my name. And so you will be test and be testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves, for I will give you words and wisdom, that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed, even by parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends. They will put you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me, but not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life. When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that the desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, for those in the city get out, and those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment, in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. There will be great distress in the land and wrath against the people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles are fulfilled. There will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and the stars. On earth, nations will put in anguish and perplexity at the roar and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehension of what is coming on the world. For the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time, they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up, lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. He told them this parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these happening, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away. But my words, they will never pass away. Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life. And that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the earth. Be always on the watch. Pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man. Every deed, every day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill, the hill called Mount of Olives, and all the people came early in the morning to hear him at the temple.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Thank you, Graham. Good morning, everyone. Good to see you all. Um perhaps not the everyone's first choice of passage for Mothering Sunday. Um you'll I think we'll all agree on that. Um but as Liz said, firstly, Mothering Sunday is a difficult day for some, and so we don't want the whole of the service to be dwelling on that and make it even more uncomfortable. Secondly, we've already spent more than a year in Luke's gospel. We desperately want to get to Jesus' death and resurrection for Easter, and if we keep stopping the sermon series every time we get to a special Sunday in the church calendar, we'll never get there. So I hope you'll forgive this um slightly jarring gear change. And um, let's pray for God's help. Heavenly Father, we have here a difficult passage, difficult to understand, um, difficult even just to hear. Um but we trust that you have given this as you have given every part of your word to to teach, to correct, to exhort, to encourage, to build up your church. And we pray that that is what you will do now to the glory of Jesus' name. Amen. There is a uh now famous phrase from the Spanish American philosopher George Santayana: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. There is a lot of truth in that saying because human history follows patterns and cycles that tend to tend to see a lot of repetition. Nothing is ever quite the same as what's gone before, but there are a lot of similarities, and and that is no less true of today's Bible passage and the events that Jesus describes in it. As we've seen over the last three weeks from Luke chapter 19 through chapter 20, Jesus came to Jerusalem in AD 32 or 33 as the Lord, the God of Israel, in human flesh to put the Jewish people and particularly their leaders in Jerusalem on trial. Malachi chapter 3 is in the background. And last week we saw how Jesus issued his damning verdict on the majority of the leadership for corrupting Jewish religion, for rejecting him as their Messiah. This week he spells out their sentence. As judge here's announcing sentence, divine wrath poured out in a siege of Jerusalem by foreign armies, which will culminate in the destruction of the temple itself. And this is exactly what the Romans did in AD 70. So from AD 66, uh there was a Jewish revolt against Roman occupation in the land. It began to gather momentum across Israel. But after some initial victories, the militants were driven back town by town, and they gradually retreated to Jerusalem itself, where they were surrounded by Roman legions in AD 70 in April, and the city was under siege for about five or six months before it finally fell. There were thousands of Passover pilgrims stuck inside the city when the siege began. Initially, the three Jewish factions that were holding up there fought each other, destroying food supplies, weakening their defenses, leading to more civilian deaths. They finally united when the Romans broke through the city walls. But in spite of fierce fighting, they were pushed back to the Temple Mount and they took their last stand there, along with many civilians who were also gathered inside the temple complex. And the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus was present at the time. He wrote an account of the siege for the Emperor Vespasian, and these are just a few sentences from chapter 5 of his account, at which point the temple courtyards and the sanctuary had been set on fire. He wrote, While the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousands of those that were caught were slain. Nor was there a commiseration of any age or any reverence of gravity, but children and old men and profane persons and priests were all slain in the same manner. And he goes on in quite gory detail about the slaughter. And historians think that between 600,000 and 1.1 million people in total died in that siege from famine, from disease, and from the actual fighting. By the time the Romans had finished their work, most of the city was in ruins, and the temple itself and its surrounding complex of courtyards and porticos, which once were 140,000 meters square, it was huge, all built in stone. Nothing of it remained except for little bits of the supporting walls on the outskirts of the courtyards. Now Jesus foretold these events in AD 32 or 33, as I've said. When exactly Luke recorded them in his gospel, we don't know for sure. It could have been early as the late 30s AD. Historians are generally agreed that Luke wrote before AD 70. So he was not making up Jesus' prophecy after the fact. Jesus' words, therefore, carry a lot of weight, particularly when he shows a parallel between the destruction of the temple and his own future return to judge the world. Now, from verses 8 to 24 of our passage, he's quite clearly talking about AD 70 and the signs and events that will precede it. But from verse 25, there is a shift. He seems to begin looking beyond to events of more global significance. But there are similar signs beforehand, and the ultimate result is the same. Destruction for those who reject Jesus, salvation for those who accept him. And so the events of AD 70 are a foretaste of something greater and more terrible to come. And we must learn the lessons of AD 70 if we want to avoid a similar fate. Again, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Now, in this sermon, I want to take quite a high-level overview of Luke 21. I won't be going into much detail at all over verses 6 to 24, because I think that all of that was fulfilled by AD 70. Rather, I want to help us try and learn the lessons for today. Firstly, about where true religion and salvation are found, something that the destruction of the temple helps to demonstrate, to signify. Secondly, to learn about Jesus' return to judge the world. What does that mean for us? It won't be totally straightforward because, frankly, this passage is far from straightforward. The parallel passages in Matthew chapter 24 and Mark chapter 13, together with Luke 21, are some of the most difficult to interpret in the New Testament. I don't claim to have a definitive understanding of it by any means. And we will need to concentrate. We really will need our wits about us today. Now I was going to say a little about the scope of Jesus' remarks, if we can have I think skip two slides, please. But because we're late getting to the sermon, I'll skip over that. But just to highlight, um if you compare Matthew and Mark and Luke's accounts of this speech by Jesus, there are slightly different emphases in each. Both, all three seem to go from the destruction of Jerusalem to the second coming at some point. Scholars disagree over where, but they have different emphases, and Luke actually leaves out most of the material about, or at least half of the material about Jesus' second coming. He actually puts that earlier in his gospel. That's nothing to worry about. Jesus was a traveling preacher who preached in loads of different places over three years. Of course, he said the same things again several times, particularly to his disciples, because they were slow to learn. But because Luke has put that material earlier on, in his gospel, the focus is most clearly on AD 70, more so I think, than in Matthew and Mark. And I think it's worth asking why. Why does Luke emphasize that so much? And again, I can't give you a definitive answer, but this is my best guess. Verse 24 is perhaps instructive because there is a saying there that is unique to Luke's gospel. Jesus says at the end of verse 24, Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Now, if we want to understand that, I suggest that we follow the trustworthy principle that Scripture interprets Scripture because God is his own best interpreter. And so if we interpret Jesus' words there in light of Romans chapter 11, he doesn't mean that God has abandoned the Jewish people completely. There is a future for them, but he does mean that for an unspecified period of time, Jerusalem itself and the Jewish people to some extent will take a back seat in God's purposes in the world, if I can put it that way. Since a majority of the Jewish people rejected Jesus as their Messiah, Paul says in Romans 11 that God is sending the good news of salvation out to the Gentiles instead for a season. And so where once Jerusalem was the central focal point of all God's purposes in the world, of his kingdom and his reign on earth, now, for a season, Jerusalem is abandoned. And perhaps the fact that there is a mosque now on the top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is testimony to the fact that it remains abandoned. The people there remain in spiritual exile. God's kingdom is no longer tied exclusively to any one people, group, or nation. It is becoming truly global. And the old religious order, founded on Moses and focused on that temple in Jerusalem with its priests and its animal sacrifices, all of that has been surpassed by something better. Not forgotten, not completely irrelevant, but surpassed and fulfilled. So the events of AD 70 signify both judgment on those who reject Jesus and a new era in God's purposes. And this is confirmed for us in Luke's account of the Last Supper, which we'll get to next week in chapter 22. I'm not going to go into detail now, but there Jesus claims to be making a new covenant, a new basis for relationship between people and God, sealed by Jesus' blood. And as we'll see, Luke is the gospel writer who emphasizes the newness of that covenant most clearly. In contrast, Matthew emphasizes continuity between the old covenant made by Moses and the new one made by Jesus. Neither approach is wrong, but we need both to fully understand what God is doing. And the point for today is that Luke wants us to see that a new era has begun in God's dealings with humanity. There's a decisive break with the past. Friendship with God and the forgiveness of sins are no longer found through a temple in Jerusalem or through animal sacrifices or through obedience to the law of Moses in the first five books of the Bible. Instead, they are found in Jesus, who is himself the better temple, God's perfect dwelling place on earth among people. And he's the better sacrifice for sin. And he's the better high priest who reconciles us to God. And he's the greater prophet than Moses, who sends the Holy Spirit to write his law not on paper or tablets of stone, but on our hearts. All of that, I would suggest, is symbolized by the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and particularly of the temple. So we should be absolutely clear if we can have the next slide, please. There is now no salvation outside of Jesus Christ for Jews or for Gentiles. And any religion which tries to earn God's favor through keeping rules and performing rituals is frankly utterly useless. No one can keep God's laws perfectly anyway because our hearts are so infected by the anti-God self-absorbed bias that we call sin. That it's impossible to obey God perfectly. And now that the temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed, there is only one sacrifice for sin left that can save us. Not lambs or bulls or goats, but Jesus' death on the cross once and for all. All who would ever believe in him. And it is only by putting all of our eggs into that basket, by asking Jesus for forgiveness and trusting him to save us on the day of judgment, only by that means can we enjoy friendship with God. The destruction of the temple is proof, living historical proof that there is no other way. So our first point of application is simply this: that if you have not yet recognized Jesus as God's chosen forever king, if you have not turned to him for the forgiveness of your sins, you must do so if you want to be friends with God. The famous economist John Maynard Keynes once said, When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? And I am asking today, will you change your mind about Jesus in light of the facts of history of AD 70 and what they prove about A, Jesus being a prophet who spoke truly, and B about salvation being found in him alone. Will you change your mind while there is still time? And I say while there is still time because in verse 25, to come on to our Next point, Jesus seems to start turning his attention to the second coming. So in verse 27, Jesus speaks of an even greater event than the destruction of Jerusalem. He says, At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. As is his custom, Jesus is referring to himself as the one like a son of man in Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 to 14, where the prophet wrote, In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days, that's God the Father, and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power. All the nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. And his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. Now, Daniel 7 seems to depict the beginning of Jesus' reign after his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven. That's because Daniel sees the Son of Man approaching the throne of God to receive power as if for the first time. As a result, some theologians argue that Luke 21, verse 27, must refer not to Jesus' return, but his coronation. And they would see the destruction of the temple as symbolic of this. I think that verse 27 does refer to Jesus' return as the culmination of his reign. And that's partly because verse 27 reads to me, like the Son of Man is coming towards the earth, not towards the throne in heaven. Verse 27 says that he has power and great glory. He's already received it, it seems. This is not his coronation. And on the face of it, it seems it reads to me like the people of the earth will see him with their own eyes. They won't just see a symbol of his reign. So I do think verse 27 is talking about Jesus' return. And I think that makes sense of verse 28, where Jesus says redemption is drawing near. Redemption is the salvation of God's people from a fallen world, from sin, from death, where we are taken to be with him forever. That is certainly not what happened in AD 70. In many ways, it was quite the opposite. Similarly, in verse 31, Jesus says, When you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. And here he means the kingdom of God in its full, final, completed sense, where God's reign covers the earth and there's no more sin and suffering and death. AD 70 did not bring about the kingdom in that sense. So from verse 25 onwards, I'm pretty sure that Jesus is talking about his return to judge the world. And his first disciples, whose questions he was answering, they would see the beginning of the signs of Jesus' return. That's clear in verse 28. Jesus says, When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads. But in verses 25 to 6, Jesus doesn't address his disciples directly. He no longer says you, rather, he starts talking about them, people in the future not yet born. It is they who will see the return of the Son of Man, not you, he seems to be implying. And so in verse 32, when Jesus says that the generation of his first disciples will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened, I think he probably means that these disciples, the first generation, they will see the destruction of the temple, they will see the signs that begin to show Jesus' coming, but they won't necessarily see the return itself. Nevertheless, from the moment that these events begin, his return and their redemption and our redemption is near. And signs of turmoil in the world today remind us that it is still coming. So in verses 25 to 26, Jesus says that his return will be preceded by upheavals on a cosmic scale. These are symbolized by signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and the roaring and tossing of the sea and the heavenly bodies being shaken. Now, in the Old Testament, the sun and the moon and the stars are the heavenly bodies, and they represent the human and sometimes spiritual rulers of this world. The sea is representative usually of chaos. And so if you put all that together, Jesus' return will be preceded by great upheavals in the world order as kings, empires, philosophies, and religions rise and then fall again, often plunging the world into chaos. And I want to say that such things have been happening all through the last 2,000 years. From the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, which many at the time, including Christians, saw as the end of civilization. They were terrified from that to the rise and fall of the Russian Soviet Empire in the 20th century, which also caused great fear in the West while it lasted. There have been all sorts of upheavals and hugely significant era-defining events all through the last 2,000 years, like the rise of Islam in the 7th century, which conquered much of Christendom. Most Eastern Orthodox Christians lived under fear and persecution for centuries. Then there was the Black Death in the Middle Ages, which killed roughly a third of Europe's population. All that is to say, we mustn't assume that recent or current events like the COVID pandemic or the war that's going on with Iran, we mustn't assume that they are unprecedented. And we mustn't assume that now has simply got to be the time when Jesus comes back. Because far worse things have happened before and may well happen again. But the pandemic and the war in Iran should remind us that Jesus' return remains near. His coming is certain, and therefore we must be ready. So we should heed Jesus' words in verses 34 to 36. Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, noisy parting, I think that means, drunkenness and the anxieties of life. And the day will close on you suddenly like a trap, for it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man. Now he speaks here to his disciples as if his return could happen in their day, which was theoretically possible because he says in Matthew and Mark's accounts that no one knows the day or hour of his return except the Father in heaven. That remains true for us. It could happen today. And so there is a challenge for us both at the level of expectations and actions. If you expect your relatives are coming to stay for the weekend, you get ready, don't you? You change the sheets on the spare bed, you buy an extra food and drink, you probably push the hoover around or clean the bathroom. But if you're not expecting them, you won't bother to do all of that. You might still hoover now and then or clean the bathroom now and then, but you won't bother changing the spare bed and buying an extra food. Similarly, for those who don't yet believe in Jesus as Saviour and King, if you don't consider it possible that he could return imminently, you will feel no urgency about looking into his claims and repenting of sin. And for those of us who believe, for Christians, we won't feel any urgency about growing in obedience to Christ, in holiness. We'll be more concerned with our finances, our health, our homes, our holidays, more so than with Jesus' priorities for our lives and with making him known to the lost. And we'll feel no urgency to pray either for ourselves or for other Christians, to pray that we will keep the faith through trials and persecutions and be found faithful when Jesus returns. If we don't believe that his return is imminent, we're just not going to bother with a lot of that. But as I've already said, the upheaval in the world today shows that his return remains near. And it is only the patience of God that wants sinners to be saved that holds it off. It could come at any time. And so it is vital that we set our expectations right and that we live accordingly, sober, alert, and prepared. Now that's a challenge for me today. I wonder how many of you that is also a challenge for. So we should be excited. And there is great comfort in verses 18 to 19, which do, I think, apply to us as much as his first disciples. He says, Not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm and you will win life. Now, when Jesus says, Not a hair of your head will perish, he can't mean that all believers will be saved from violence and persecution, because he's just said in verse 16 that some of his disciples will be put to death. So rather, by perishing, he means eternal destruction. The second death, as it's referred to in Revelation, depicted as a lake of burning sulphur. Those who persevere through trials and do not deny Jesus will win eternal life. And so completely will God grant eternal life when He resurrects our bodies on the day of Jesus' return, that not one hair of our heads will be missing. A typical adult apparently has between 90 to 150,000 hairs on their heads, and for some reason that varies depending on hair colour. That's a lot of hair, though, either way. And so this pictures God's tender and perfect care for us. Even the smallest bit of a believer's body is so precious in his sight that he cherishes it and he will not leave it behind when he redeems us and brings us into his forever kingdom. That is how much he cares for us. If you know that God today, through Jesus Christ, if you know him as your Father, do you realize that is how he cares for you? And isn't that a redemption that's worth persevering for? Let's pray. And as we consider your return still to come. And for those of us who know you, Lord Jesus, would you please put a spring in our steps? Would you please help us to lift up our heads as we see turmoil in the world around us? Not to be unduly confident that we can put a timeline on your return, but to know that it is near and to be rejoicing that our redemption is near. And Lord, may we be ready. May we be ready when it comes. Not slothful, not complacent, but living for your kingdom. Amen.