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All right. All right. So, anyone remember 1988? Looking at the youngins. Oh, yeah. In

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1988, I was 10 years old. And yeah, because Tony, Tony, he's laughing at how old he is,

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at how young I am. And little did I know that in 1988, when I was 10 years old, that the

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world was about to come to an end. I was in the fifth grade, and I remember my mom was

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driving me to school. My mom always had the Christian radio station on, and something

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that was said on the station prompted me to ask my mother, what were they talking about?

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There was a guy named Edgar C. Weisnant. He was a former NASA engineer, so obviously had

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a certain level of intelligence about him. He was a Bible student. And he was predicting

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that the rapture would occur sometime between September 11th and the 13th of 1988. Weisnant

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published and sold two books called On Borrowed Time and the very catchy 88 Reasons Why the

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Rapture Will Be in 1988. He mailed 300,000 copies of 88 Reasons for free to churches

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across America and sold 4.5 million copies in Christian bookstores. This is how End Times

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focused parts of the church had become. While Jesus said in Mark 13, 32, no one knows the

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hour, Weisnant was quoted as saying, only if the Bible is in error am I wrong. Spoken

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like a true NASA scientist, right? And his predictions were actually taken seriously

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in some parts of the evangelical Christian community. And as the date approached, like

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that morning on the way to school, Christian broadcasting networks like TBN would interrupt

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regular programming to provide special instructions on how to prepare for the rapture. Of course,

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we know that the rapture didn't happen, but Weisnant was undeterred. Weisnant followed

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up three times each time he was wrong. He wrote a new book in 1989, 89 Reasons, one

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in 1993 and one in 1994. By the time he got to 94, it was like 21 reasons it might happen

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in 1994. Weisnant died in 2001. Today is May 7th, 2023. The rapture has not occurred.

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And I want to let people down gently, but the rapture may never occur. Will Jesus return?

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Will He make all things right? Will He make all things new? I absolutely believe that.

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Yes. But fewer and fewer theologians believe that the rapture, where all Christians will

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disappear for seven years before Jesus comes again, again, because in order for that to

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be what happens, He'd have to come again and then seven years later come again. They don't

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think it's actually a biblical concept. They think it's more of a deduction. Just really

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quick, there's this really helpful theological structure that you can use called phyto. F-I-D-O.

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F is the center. F is the foundational things that if we don't believe these things, then

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it's not Christianity. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That's foundational. And

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interpretation is, these are the interpretations, so these get further away from what is absolutely

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central. So I interpret something that Jesus said in this way, but I could be wrong. D

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is a deduction. I'm now taking different things and I'm deducing what I think is true, but

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it's further and further away from the central idea of what is absolutely necessary. And

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then O is opinion. What color should the carpet be? Right? What has happened is over the years,

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theologians believe that we have taken a couple of verses from Paul and one verse from Jesus.

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And because we typically, as modern Americans, don't understand history, we don't understand

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the language that they were using, we have actually misunderstood Jesus' point. And we've

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misunderstood him to the point that we are probably in direct conflict with what he's

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actually saying. So today is week four of Say What? That's right. What it says that

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Jesus says, what he says and what it says when Jesus talks about his return matters.

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There's a great deal. So let's jump into Matthew chapter 24. Matthew 24. If you do not have

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a Bible, we have Bibles out in the lobby on the bookshelf. They are blue, easy to spot.

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You're welcome to take one of those home with you or download a Bible from any of the digital

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app stores. This is going to be a really long passage. So I'm actually going to invite you

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just to sit. We have a tradition of giving the scriptures our full attention. And I actually

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think that this passage is long enough that if you stand for the whole time, it will be

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difficult for you to give it your full attention. So let's all sit together as I read this passage,

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Matthew 24, starting in verse one, it says this. Jesus left the temple and was walking

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away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. Do you

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see all these things he asked? Truly, I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another.

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Everyone will be thrown down. As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples

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came to him privately. Tell us, they said. When will this happen? And what will be the

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sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Jesus answered, watch out that no one

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deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming I am the Messiah and will deceive

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me. You will hear of wars, rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such

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things must happen, but the end is still not come. Nation will rise against nation and

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kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these

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are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put

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to death and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time, many will turn

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away from the faith and will betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear

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and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow

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cold. But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom

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will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.

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So when you see standing in the holy place, the abomination that causes desolation, spoken

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of through the prophet Daniel, let the reader understand. Then let those who are in Judea

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flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house.

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Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days

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for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Pray that your flight will not take place in winter

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or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning

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of the world until now and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short,

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no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. At

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that time, if anyone says to you, look, here's the Messiah or there he is, do not believe

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it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders

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and deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time. So if

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anyone tells you there he is out in the wilderness, do not go out or here he is in the inner rooms,

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do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west,

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so will be the coming of the son of man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will

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gather. Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened and the

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moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies

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will be shaken. Then will appear the sign of the son of man in heaven. And then all

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the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the son of man coming on the clouds of

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heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call.

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And they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other.

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Now learn this lesson from the fig tree. As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves

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come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know

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that it is near. Right at the door, truly I tell you, this generation will certainly

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not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away,

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but my words will never pass away. But about the day and hour, no one knows. Not even the

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angels in heaven, nor the sun, but only the father. As it was in the days of Noah, so

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it will be at the coming of the son of man. From the days before the flood, before people

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were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the

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ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them

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all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the son of man. Two men will be in a field.

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One will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill. One

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will be taken and the other left. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what

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day your Lord will come. But understand this. If the owner of the house had known at what

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time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his

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house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the son of man will come at

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an hour when you do not expect. Let us pray. God of every tribe, every tongue, every color

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and every nation, we thank you for the scriptures. We thank you that they have persisted through

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the millennia, that we have them to hold, to read, to consider, to learn from, to be

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sharpened by. And I pray that whatever you have for us to learn today, I pray that it

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would stick, that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith

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would become stronger, that we would become more like your son, Jesus. Amen.

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Alright, so I just read 44 verses which might hold the record for longest passage read at

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the house during a sermon. And we will not go over all 44 of these verses verse by verse,

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because that wasn't the point. The point was this, that this is the kind of passage that

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needs to be read in its entirety, not just for context, but to illustrate just how much

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is being said. And not only how much is being said, but how much is being said that is not

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easily understood. Think about how many times as we read that, if you really, if you really

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let your brain go, you would have been like, I wonder what that is, I wonder what that

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is, I wonder what that is, I wonder what that is. What is that? What's he talking about

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there? This is on purpose. This passage is what's called an apocalyptic segment. Apocalyptic

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writing in the scriptures is intentional future thinking. It is intentionally future predicting

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and prophetic, and it is intentionally coded and layered with secret meaning. It is intentionally

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trying to confuse people. Not including the Apocrypha, there are only two books considered

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mostly or completely apocalyptic in the Bible. You get so many Bible points if you know what

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they are already. I don't bet you know. Daniel in the first testament and Revelation in the

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second testament, only two. But considering how much of modern Christianity in the past

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one hundred years has focused on end times and scaring people with the idea that they

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were going to get left behind, you'd think that Jesus had spent chapter upon chapter

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talking about it, or entire books laying out the plan word for word without any confusion,

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but he didn't. There's only a few bits and parables throughout the gospels, and this

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is actually the primary passage. It's called the Olivet Discourse, because where did he

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say it? On the Mount of Olives. It just happens to be the same place that he went to pray

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the Garden of Gethsemane before he was betrayed and handed over. This discourse, this sermon,

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this moment of teaching his disciples is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and in none of

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them does Jesus spell out what he means. They come to him, his disciples come to him and

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go, tell us what you're talking about. What is this? When will this happen? How will we

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know? And then he goes on in apocalyptic discourse, intentionally speaking in code. It was confusing

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for them, but even more so for us, because we don't know the original language. We didn't

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grow up under Rome as our rulers, and we don't actually know personally all the little references

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that he's making. And as a reader, that can be a problem, because that's when we can make

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a lot of assumptions. We read things, oh that reminds me of that, that must be what he's

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talking about. Sometimes we learn something, and then we go to the Bible and we read what

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we learned into the Bible. It's what Scott McKnight, the Bible scholar, calls the blue

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parakeet. If you have something, you end up seeing it everywhere else. I remember being

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in a Bible class in college, and someone, and the professor asked, and we'll ask in

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this room, right? So who's the most recent purchase of a car, new or used, in the last

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year? Who's gotten a different car? Okay, what kind of car is it? Are you okay with

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his name?

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O6 Impala.

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O6 Impala. Once you got an O6 Impala, did you start noticing more Impalas on the road?

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No? Good for you, Bradley. Good for you. Good for you, because the typical answer is yeah.

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What did you get? A Jeep. All right. And they're everywhere, yeah. I remember being in class

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and the guy was like, oh yeah, I got a Cavalier. And they were like, oh, what color was it?

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And they were, oh, it was actually a blue Cavalier. And the professor said, oh, have

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you noticed more blue Cavaliers? And they were like, oh my gosh, I totally have. This

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happened to me when I bought a rendezvous. I didn't realize that it was a middle-aged

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woman's car. No offense. Like, I just didn't realize. Every rendezvous I saw from that

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point on was being driven by a 40-year-old woman. And I was like, oh, all right, I got

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something in common with a bunch of ladies. That's awesome. It drove well. It's comfortable.

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It had the whole family in it. We can start reading the things that we've learned into

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the Bible and we start making a lot of assumptions about what we're reading. Or we make, at

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best, deductions about what we're reading by piecing things together that maybe we don't

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actually understand. And I just want to say that deductions are rarely the kinds of beliefs

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that anyone should argue over. So let's consider this passage as simply as we possibly can

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in this prophetic snippet. I think that there are at least two things that are being prophesied

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about, that are being promised by Jesus specifically about the future. One is impending destruction.

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The second is future glorification. Jesus is saying, you are going to be able to tell

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when destruction is coming. And then sometime after that, I will return. But no one will

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know when that is happening. Let me say that more precisely in the context of this passage.

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Jesus is saying to them, you, they, will be able to tell when destruction is coming. They

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will see it. He says, you will see this happen in your lifetime. Truly, I tell you, this

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generation will certainly not pass away. And then Jesus is also saying to everyone, including

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us, that we will not know when he is returning. Why is it not? For all his calculations and

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insight and interpretation, forgot one thing. Jesus said, we will not know. So what do we

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know? We know that when Jesus said that they would see destruction, that he was telling

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you the truth. We know that that prophecy has been fulfilled. And how do we know that?

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We know because of history. It has been mentioned from this pulpit at least five or six times

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that I can think of as I think through the different sermon series that we have done.

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But that does not mean that we all remember it because I am sure it got mentioned from

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the pulpit at the church that I grew up at. But I did not remember it until I was probably

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in my late 20s or early 30s when I learned about it again. What am I talking about? I

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am talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. This passage begins with Jesus

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telling them what? Not one stone will be left on top of another. It was prophetic. It was

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a future statement. Destruction is impending. It is imminent. It is inevitable. I went to

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a Bible teaching church every Sunday, exegetical, verse by verse. Sunday schools for kids that

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were basically Bible studies with a little bit of entertainment to keep you paying attention.

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But it was all about the Bible. Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible. I went

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to a Christian grade school through sixth grade. I went to a Bible college. And I got

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through all of that without knowing or remembering that between the year of 66 and 100, 35 years

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after Jesus ascended, that Rome came through and completely destroyed the temple. And I

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bet money that most modern American Christians don't know that either. In the history books,

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it's what's called the Jewish revolt. About 35 years, like I said, after Jesus, between

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66 and 70ish, the people, the Jewish people began to revolt against Rome and eventually

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Rome did what Rome did best. They squashed their enemies. The highest estimate says that

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one million Jews died in the Jewish revolt. And in the process, because they knew that

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the religion of Israel was part of the thing that kept causing the Jews to revolt and push

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back against Rome, they decided that they would level the temple. Completely obliterate

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it. If you look up pictures right now of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, it stands now as

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it did then. The mount was not part of the temple. The mount was actually built by Herod

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so that the temple could be built on top of it. Rome left the part that they built. They

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destroyed the part that meant something to them spiritually. They left no stone on top

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of another. The Romans desecrated the holy place. To this day, the Jews have never rebuilt

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their temple on the mount. That doesn't mean they didn't try. The first time they attempted

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to rebuild the temple was during what's called the Bar Kokhba revolt in 123 to 135, about

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50 years after the first Jewish revolt. By the year 120, in the 120s, the Roman emperor

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of the time had forbidden Jews from circumcision, which is a central tenet of the Jewish faith.

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And he had begun building a temple to the Greek god of Jupiter on the Temple Mount.

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So they revolted again. The eventual result was even worse than before. Because this time

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not only did Rome squash their revolt, this time Rome expelled all Jewish people from

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the holy city. When we know the history, and then we read parts of the passage again, like

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let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the

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field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women

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and nursing mothers. Pray that your flight not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.

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When we read it with historical context, now we can hear what Jesus was talking about. We

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can feel confident that what he said would happen has happened. We are no longer waiting

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for impending destruction. I grew up being taught that this passage was about our rapture.

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That the destruction that was being talked about was a great tribulation. About how there

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would be so many wars in the world, Christians would be so persecuted to the point that finally

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Jesus would come and just take all the Christians away from the pain. I had a friend that was

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seriously considering not getting married. Not because he thought he was called to celibacy,

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but because he was afraid of having a pregnant wife when this happened. And so it is time

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for your theological word of the day. Everyone say partial preterism. Partial preterism.

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Full preterism is an end times view that says that all the prophecies in the Bible have

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already happened. It says books like Daniel aren't talking about events that we will experience.

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It's talking about events that the Israelites experienced in the 200 years that were leading

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up to the birth of Christ, which is probably true. It says that the book of Revelation

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is describing what happened in the Jewish and Bar Kokhba revolts. Which is also at least

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mostly true, if not partially true. But full preterism would say that even when Jesus said

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that the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him, that that has also

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somehow already happened. But as I look around, I don't see a new earth. I don't see the

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recreated heavens. I do not see the end of war and sin and sickness. I see a world that

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is still in need of a savior. That is still waiting for the King of Kings to come again

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and make all things new. So personally, I'm not a full preterist. I am what we said a

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partial preterist. Partial preterism is the idea that says that while much of what was

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prophesied in the Bible has already happened and that history bears that out, that other

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prophecies have most definitely not happened yet. And they will. Which brings us back to

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the simplicity of this complicated passage about impending destruction and future glorification.

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The impending destruction has happened. And Jesus tells us that destruction will continually

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happen until he returns. But what we are supposed to learn, at least in one way, is that destruction

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is not the trigger that tells us Jesus is about to come. Destruction is the sign that

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he has not yet come. Destruction, floods, famines, wars. As we look around continually,

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we are not meant to be afraid of them. We are not meant to get out our holy abacus and

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try and add up the spiritual math of when he will return. We are meant to feel confident

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that Jesus was right and that he will also be right. And if we were to boil this down

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even to one thing, this passage is about faithfulness. It says those who would endure to the end,

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no matter what happens, no matter what we experience, no matter what wars and travesties,

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famines and earthquakes happen around the world, Jesus is asking us to be faithful,

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not to be fearful, to believe that he knew what he was talking about. We can still trust

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that what else he said can still be trusted. Because the Son of Man will come at an hour

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when we do not expect it. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you know the day

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and the hour, that you know the minute that trumpets will sound, that your Son will appear

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with the angels in the sky and gather all of his people that he loves across the earth

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to himself. I ask that you just help us to trust your spirit, that we would be patient

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with each other, that we would put down our calculations, that we would open our hands

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and let go of our fear, that we would trust that destruction may always happen, but you

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are always faithful. We can continue to look to you, continue to trust you, continue to

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understand that you've told us these things because we will have trouble in this world

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but you have overcome this world. And you will never leave us or forsake us. You have

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not left us here as orphans, but you have sent your spirit to be with us, to comfort

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us, counsel us, guide us, every moment, every day, until we see you again. Amen.