November 2, 2003 Mark 13:5-11
5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “But you - watch each other. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.
Dear Fellow Lutherans, Reformed by the Grace of God in Preparation for His Coming,
Several weeks ago I heard a traveling evangelist claim that our own government blew up the Oklahoma City building and is currently protecting the evidence so no one will find out “the truth”. Others also have claimed that the United States and the Jews also orchestrated the 9-11 attacks against the Twin Towers. Why? So they could go and attack Iraq and take over Arabic countries. Others have a theory that the United States government allows these things to happen so that they can pass laws that will give them more power. These are called Conspiracy Theories. The Internet is full of them.
The religious world is full of conspiracy theories well. I don’t know how many preachers have looked at Daniel and Ezekiel and tried to find how these predictions have come true. During the cold war Russia was the big enemy that everyone had to beware of. But now, more people are pointing to Syria, Iran, and North Korea as supposedly being predicted in the Bible as the great Satan and what not. Many Zionists claim that when Israel was re-established it was all predicted in the Bible and a sign of a millennium to come. Some people really get wrapped up in this stuff, to the point of paranoia.
In today’s text Jesus talked in very clear language about what would happen prior to the end of the world. There’s no room for false and fanciful interpretations in these words. They’re pretty straight forward. Without getting specific, Jesus talks about “false christs” who would come in His name and deceive many. He also talks about earthquakes, famines, wars and rumors of wars, and also persecutions of Christians. He also said to “watch out” for them - several times. These are real warnings - they aren’t things that we should just laugh off or ignore as religious paranoia. They’re straight forward warnings.
Yet we have a church and a world full of people who are more concerned about what color their carpet is and know more about their starting football team than they do about these predictions of Christ. It is a sad commentary on the laziness and down right ignorance of the very people that God calls to watch out. It reminds me of when the Wise Men came to find Jesus and the teachers of the law told them to go to Bethlehem, but not a one of them was energetic enough to go with them. If you really opened your eyes to what is going on in our world, I believe that we would have more Christians concentrating on God’s Word and what is really important in life. Because the more you look at it, the more you’ll see that the end is very near indeed.
As we look back on these predictions that Jesus made 2,000 years ago on this Reformation Sunday, it will become painfully clear how near the end really is, and what we need to do in light of this revelation. Jesus tells you to -
Open Your Eyes and Your Mouths As the End Draws Near
I. Things are getting worse
When Jesus spoke these predictions, he concluded by saying in vs. 30, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” By the time that generation passed away, all of what Jesus predicted would happen prior to the end of the world had come true. The disciples were put on trial before governors and kings. A famine and persecution had caused a great collection to be made for the church in Jerusalem. The Roman army came in and destroyed the temple in 70 A.D., so not one stone was standing on another. Many false apostles came in the name of Christ and wrote letters that they said were from Moses, Paul, and others - but weren’t. The Gospel had reached the ends of the earth. (Romans 10:18) Everything that Christ predicted came true. But the end didn’t come.
Why not? Jesus called them the “beginning of birth pains.” When birth pains came on my wife during birth, it was only the beginning. Once they started, they only got worse and more frequent. Her head would soon turn around and she would turn into five different colors - her voice would make sounds never heard before. The birth pains were the beginning of things that would get worse before they got better. I believe that is the same as what Jesus is predicting here as well. These predictions have been repeatedly occurring in varying degrees ever since - and they are only getting worse and more frequent with time.
As long as we’re celebrating the Reformation, we can see how these predictions came true especially during Luther’s time. The first thing Jesus warned was that many will come claiming, “I am he,” deceiving many. When Luther was alive that was one person who claimed to be send straight from Jesus Christ and represent Jesus’ every thought and wish - and that was Pope Leo X. The Pope claimed to have the ability to free people from the punishments of hell and purgatory through the selling of indulgences. He claimed to have the sole authority over the interpretation of what God’s Word said. With all of these claims over the church and the government, what was the Pope doing but claiming, “I am HE”? The worst part is that with this authority and power, the Roman Papacy and faith system deceived Luther into thinking that the only way he could get to heaven would be to somehow purge his body of sin. So Luther beat his body to near death as a monk in the hopes of somehow escaping God’s wrath.
As Luther grew closer and closer to hell, God became a demon to him - an evil tormentor who wanted nothing more than to harass and condemn Luther with His countless laws and regulations. He struggled and struggled with this, until as a Professor he sat down and studied Romans 1. In it he read Romans 1 that in the Gospel a righteousness comes from God - by faith. At that point Luther said to himself, “the Gospel is the good news that Jesus lived a perfect life as my substitute, and that he died on the cross. He didn’t die for Himself, so He must have died for me. How does His righteousness become mine? Not by beating myself and trying to reform my life, but simply by faith in Jesus! All that He has becomes mine through faith! He became what He was not - sin - so that I would become what I was not - righteous!” This “tower experience” set him from the deceit that he had been put under for his whole life - that he had to punish himself for his sins - and set him free from God’s wrath.
Naturally, Luther wanted to share his experience with his students and all he came across. But the Catholic Church was teaching people that the purchase of an indulgence could free souls from God’s wrath. The very thought of salvation through a piece of paper was appalling to him. So he wrote the 95 Theses in rebuttal to this concept and nailed it to the Castle Door of the Wittenberg Church on October 31, 1517. But when he questioned the Pope’s authority to sell indulgences and free people from eternal persecutions in hell, his henchmen responded quickly in attempts to silence Luther. Normally, Luther could have been arrested and even put to death by the Pope very easily, but due to the political situation, the Catholic Church and the Pope were not as powerful as they had been. The Turkish armies were invading southeastern Europe, and the Pope needed help in fighting this enemy - from Frederick and other German princes. The only problem was that Luther lived in Frederick’s province, and Frederick was sympathetic to Luther. Since the Pope didn’t want to anger Frederick, all he could do was to call Luther to trial in German territories at Augsburg, Leipzig, and Worms, in the hopes that Frederick would support their condemnation of Luther. So in the midst of this spiritual war and physical war, church councils, governors and kings were also involved in the battle. When you consider all of this history, you can see most of the predictions of Jesus come true once again. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. you will be handed over to the local councils. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings.
As we live in America today, we need to look at these predictions carefully, because they are still being fulfilled in a variety of ways. Mormons still claim to have a “living prophet” who gives them revelations as if they were straight from God. When Pope John Paul II sits “ex cathedra”, he still claims to be able to proclaim new doctrines and teachings. This man is being exalted as one of the greatest popes ever, and as he grows close to death he is being immortalized as only God should be. These spiritual leaders deceitfully tell their followers that the life and death of Christ was not enough for their salvation - that they need to also submit to their teachings and rules to be truly righteous in God’s sight. A majority of people still ultimately believe that they are going to heaven by being “good people”, and not by faith in Christ alone.
As a result of a false prophet named Mohammed we are now living in a World War against Muslim extremists who believe that they must rid the earth of Christians and heathens. Christians in America are being put before the courts for proclaiming the same faith that they have for centuries but is now somehow “illegal.” In a book by Nina Shea called “In the Lion’s Den,” Nina makes the case that more Christians died in the 20th century under persecution than the past 19 centuries combined! Pastor Jeske - who wrote the People’s Bible on 1 Peter - mentions that hundreds of thousands of Christian Armenians were slaughtered by Muslim Turks in the early years of the 20th century. In 1929 Joseph Stalin destroyed 92 percent of the church buildings and only one seminary remained open. In China there were 8,325 Protestant missionaries in 1936. But when Mao and the Communists took over in 1949 and attempted to kill or expel all missionaries, that number was reduced to less than 20 by 1952. Over one million Sudanese Christians and non-Muslims were abducted or killed in recent years by the country’s Islamic government. These are not theories. They are proven facts.
Open your eyes, my friends, and see that these predictions are coming true in OUR WORLD more than ever. Nations are rising against nations. The birth pains are getting stronger, more frequent, and more painful. Jesus didn’t say, “you might be handed over,” or “these things could happen.” He said they would happen - and they are. We are in the middle of a war, and the sad fact of the matter is that we don’t even know about a majority of it. Until I read Pastor Jeske’s book, I was pretty much oblivious to these facts. There’s more important things in the world than stock prices, the latest K-State or KU games, or whether Kobe Bryant is guilty or not. We need to open our eyes to this.
II. It’s time to act
But what should we do? What can we do about it? Should we become paranoid and constantly worry about whether Russia is the great evil or Syria or the Chinese? Should we wring our hands and fists in terror over what Jesus is saying here? Not at all. Jesus said, “don’t be alarmed” - to remember that God is still in charge. But that doesn’t mean that we should just throw our hands up in a “what can we do?” mentality either. Jeremiah knew that God had predicted disaster for the Israelites. He thought about not saying anything. But then he said, if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20) Because of the conviction of his heart, he couldn’t hold it in - and he wouldn’t. He had to say something - try to do something.
Luther was put in the same situation. He wasn’t looking to start a war. But when Tetzel started selling indulgences and telling people, “when the coin in the coffer clings, another soul heavenward springs,” Luther couldn’t take it anymore. He saw his members and common people using these indulgences as excuses to sin. He knew this was not Biblical. So he wrote the 95 Theses in Latin - in order to have a theological debate. He didn’t translate them, someone else did. He didn’t publish them, someone else did. Before he knew it, he found himself in the middle of a spiritual battle that he had no intentions of starting. Cardinal Cajetan and Dr. Eck and others were accusing him left and right. But Jesus promised him, Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit. As he stood on trial before the councils, what did Martin say? “I’m sorry, I’ll take back everything I said”? No. With the strength God provided, Martin stood by God’s Word and said “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” When all was said and done, the power of the Papacy had been broken, and the Church and State had broken free from the tyranny that had ruled for 100’s of years. But Luther, what did Luther say achieved this? It wasn’t him, but the Word of God that did it.
Thousands of years earlier, another Person stood trial. Although He had done nothing wrong, that Person was accused of starting an insurrection - of threatening to tear down the temple - of all kinds of things. What was He guilty of? Nothing but proclaiming the truth - that He was the Christ - the Savior of the world. He knew what to say - He had every defense in the world. But the Holy Spirit guided Him perfectly, to the amazement of Pilate, to keep His mouth shut. In fulfillment of Isaiah 53, He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. The only way Jesus could defend us from God’s wrath was by not defending Himself against the false accusations of His accusers. By the time Jesus did speak in His own defense, it was too late, as the Father had already judged Him as a guilty and damned sinner on the cross. With the condemnation handed down, God then opened His mouth three days later and declared to the world, “not guilty,” when Jesus was raised from the dead. With that sacrifice, God cleansed your eyes, your mouth, and your soul from sin and the guilt of God’s condemnation. The war has been won, and we are the victors.
Even though the war is one, the battle is still going on - and you are still in it. The devil is fighting against the truth. The world is fighting against God’s standards of living. You can’t enter this battle with your eyes and ears closed. God has opened them to see what is going on. Like Esther, you may want to remain quiet and say nothing. But Mordecai asked her, “who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Every day that war draws in different lines. It may be with the behavior or your children or spouse. It may be in the false doctrine of a pastor or co-worker. It may come from your own sinful urges within. You cannot ignore these battle lines. You can’t excuse your silence by saying, “I don’t know what to say.” Now is the time, more than ever, to get into the Word, and know the Word - so that the Holy Spirit can guide you into what to say. The Word of God is the only sword we have to fight the battle. We can’t remain silent to false teachings. We can’t remain silent to evil actions. How can we keep quiet when the world will end up in hell without Jesus Christ. Martin Luther was given the same Holy Spirit that we have to stand up for the truth. He had the same Gospel of Jesus Christ that changed his heart and our hearts. If God could give him the courage, He can do the same for you. It is time to be strong. Be courageous. The Lord your God will be with you. Standing up for the truth is never easy business. God never said it would be. That’s why Jesus encouraged us to watch out and watch each other. We’re in this together. It’s not a game. It’s not just a trial. It’s a war - and we’re in the middle of it. Open Your Eyes and Mouths as the End Draws Near. Amen.
