The Gospel of Luke 21:1-11 A widow & whats coming up

Good morning. We're going to be venturing into this passage here, Luke 21, 1 through 11, as Randy just read for us here. And we've been presenting, and I think this is good artwork as well as scholarship on the part of the artist who did this. This is taking place at the temple, first at the temple courtyard, which is kind of the outer colonnade. where Jesus is teaching and responding to questions. And then what takes place here with the widow is inside what we'll see as the woman's court in the inner temple area. It was only for Jewish women. And then as Jesus is leaving the temple and heading towards the Mount of Olives and towards Bethany, He's going out from there, and that's when they're remarking about the marvelous stonework and the various votive gifts, and we'll talk about that a little bit more. Then he begins to answer their questions as they go out towards the Mount of Olives and can see from there, similar to the perspective that we have here in this piece of artwork. As they see the temple, it's this gleaming white marvelous building with lots of gold.

And so we'll talk about that in a bit. This would be a view kind of obliquely looking down on the inner temple. See there was the word for the outer temple which included the courtyards and the perimeter colonnade. And the area toward the east in that colonnade was Solomon's Portico, and then to the south was the Royal Stoa, and they had names for different sections of it. Here what we see in the foreground is what's called the Women's Court. And then in the part in the back with the taller part of the building, that would be the inner part of the temple where essentially only the priests would go into there, and to the very back of it Only the high priest would go once a year on the Day of Atonement. So what we see taking place here in today's account in the first verses there with the widow is taking place in this front part of what you see there. So in this location. Here would be down on the floor of the women's court looking up at the building.

And just to get an idea, this is 15 stories tall. So this building is quite tall. And so when you see the gold that is there on the top of the structure and decorating certain parts of it, 15 stories tall, this is substantial. This is not just a light touch. This is a substantial amount of gold that's on there in shining contrast to the white gleaming marble that surround the rest of it.

Also, to let you know, it's still Wednesdays. It's Wednesday, as we've been making note of. It's been Wednesday for several Sundays, the last several Sundays. And this should be the final day. One of the perspectives that that has is it would be Thursday would be the day of preparation for the Passover. It would be the next evening. So it's getting close.

By this hour, it's getting close to 24 hours until they have the Last Supper. which would be a Passover celebration turned into the Lord's table. And so just to kind of keep the perspective within 48 hours from the words that we see here, Christ will be taken off the cross in preparation for burial. So we would have, as we typically have for the Lord's Table here, we'd have this scene here just about 24 hours after this time that we're reading about this morning.

This passage here, verses 1 through 11 in Luke 21, has two very different topics. And matter of fact, the second topic we're going to see is an introduction to what's actually going to take a couple more Sundays for us to cover. The first is the poor widow who gave more than the wealthy donors in the temple treasury. And so that's the first few verses in the first part of it. The second topic is an introduction of the question about what is going to happen in the future of the church, in the nation and people of Israel and of the world.

And by the way, these disciples don't understand yet about what the church is. So what Jesus is telling them, they won't understand for quite some time. The rest of what's going to happen, we'll take a couple more Sundays to cover, as we mentioned, and so we'll take those in pieces and passages throughout the rest of chapter 21. So here's Luke 21.

And he, that is Jesus, looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. Now what's shown in the picture here is more objects, different items. What was actually more typical would have been coins and things of that sort, rather than a lot of objects, as this picture shows. But nonetheless, it does show these rather richly dressed men and putting their gifts in the treasury.

Here, as you have, is a half page slide on the first page of your handout. Here is the Court of Women, shown in the bottom part, and I've put some larger print on it here so that we'd be sure to notice it. This is the front part, as we saw in the picture. It doesn't mean that only women were allowed there. It means qualified Jewish women were allowed in there.

That was as far as they were allowed to proceed. They weren't allowed to proceed back into the area where the sacrifices were being done by the priests. They're qualified children and qualified Jewish men. Example, they had to be ones who had not had some heinous sin overhanging them. They could not be illegitimate children or even adults. So they had to qualify in various ways. Certain injuries even disqualified and otherwise qualified Jew from going into this area. Now around the perimeter were 13 chests to receive contributions. Nine of those were for contributions required under the Law of Moses.

The other four were for voluntary contributions. And you'd be very glad to know we're not going to do that in our lobby. We will not have 13 chests out there for contributions. OK, and we certainly won't have chests out there for contributions under the law. All right, now, each of the 13 chests had signs to indicate the purpose of each of the chests. So you didn't, you know, what's this for?

So each one of them had signs, they had labels, and each one had a trumpet-shaped funnel into which one could drop the coins. Again, if they had other objects that typically were not put in these chests but would be presented before a priest or a Levite instead.

So anyway, we have the Court of Women, that's where this is taking place. This was considered the treasury and those chests were distributed around during a busy time like this where Passover is anticipated. There'd be lots of people in there and of course lots of people giving into the treasury. The priests and Levites would have to go in frequently and empty those out because of the volume of Jews coming in from different places. Some Jews coming in from different places even different parts of the Roman Empire or the Empire to the East might only be giving large amounts at certain times like this because they didn't come into the temple all the time and didn't have the opportunity to.

So first the rich are there and they're noticed. It was evident of course from the clothing that they wore. They wore clothing that was far more stylish and would have fancier things in it. Sometimes some gold and silver into the fabric and certainly some finer cloth. And also certain colors were more expensive. So they openly contributed to the temple and of course those who had a lot and were noticeably more wealthy were certainly expected to put in more.

Coins that were greater in weight and greater in number made a lot of noise as they hit the trumpets. These trumpets would actually make some noise, and then as they dropped into the pile inside the chest, they would make more noise still. If you've ever been in a situation where people are pouring coins, you get the idea. It makes a fair amount of noise. People could easily be impressed by all the fine clothing and the number and the weight of coins made evident, of course, by the noise that they made.

Luke 21.2 reads like this, and he saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. So Jesus saw this widow who was evidently poor, probably by her attire being very simple as opposed to the fancier clothing of those who are wealthy, and putting in just two small coins into the temple treasury. These little coins were known as lepta, and they happen to have, here's a genuine article, the real thing, and then a fake one, a replica, right? And so you're welcome to take a look at that, but this is what basically they look like.

They would take little blobs of copper and then stamp certain things on those coins. In order to get around the fraction, I'll put it this way, it took 128 of those to make one denarius. A denarius was a typical day's wage for a laborer or for the lowest level Roman soldier. So here would be a denarius, larger, yes, but also of a higher value metal, silver, as opposed to the copper coin. So 128 of these little tiny ones here to equal the denarius, the single denarius.

So this was a very small amount. You could put it this other way. The widow was giving a few minutes worth of a day laborer's wage. That was all she had. It was a little tiny coin. little tiny amount. She gave, however, sacrificially out of her love for God, two lepta coins being, as we'll see, all that she had. But her sacrificial giving also showed that she trusted the Lord to provide for her needs, even if miraculously.

This reminds us of the widow of Zarephath, 1st Kings 17, 8 through 16, who provided food and for Elijah during a time when Elijah needed to be sustained and essentially he was under attack. He had prayed for no rain and the Lord had answered his prayer.

No rain in Israel for remember three years and so but the Lord told this widow The widow of Zarephath, you must provide for this prophet Elijah who's coming. So Elijah comes up and sees that she's bringing in some sticks to make a fire, right? And she is actually going to make what she considers to be her last meal for herself and her son. And Elijah says, go ahead and make me a cake of bread, right? And the Lord provided by replicating, by reproducing the oil and the flour, as long as Elijah stayed there, there was enough for her and her son and for Elijah the entire time there.

So miraculously providing. for this widow and you can imagine that this widow that Jesus had just seen there in the temple was thinking in the same face kind of way God will provide for me whatever is needed and looking to the Lord in that so Luke 21 3 and 4 and he said truly I say to you this poor widow put in more than all of them for they all out of their surplus put into the offering But she, out of her poverty, put in all that she had to live on.

So, the wealthy put in their portion from their plenty, and others were impressed, of course, and noticed. But the widow's two tiny lepta were all she had to live on, as Jesus reveals to us. So Jesus said that this widow, with these little tiny lepta, Two of those gave more. She gave more than all the great many coins of greater value and weight. Why? It wasn't because of the actual numbers, the actual weights and the actual coins, but she gave more in terms of she gave all versus they giving out of their surplus. You know, when we look at it, scripture does offer some guidance.

Certainly we're not going to have the 13 chests in the lobby. And we won't have the nine of them labeled with, you're supposed to give these under the law, right? I even saw, you know, one church said, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. Well, wait a minute. We don't have a storehouse and we don't have a tithe and there's no priests and Levites to give it to.

But there is guidance. The First Corinthians elective actually is going to be going through some good passages on it. Both First and Second Corinthians offer some good guidance on Christian giving. We won't take the time to go through that, but certainly the elective is going to end up offering that.

Second Corinthians 9.7, which we also post in the one place where you can give here at Holly Hills, is a good one. Each one must do as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. A cheerful giver. That it is the heart with which it is given. And that's the point that Jesus has here with this widow. It's the heart that gives that is the issue.

There was a story I heard one time about a couple of kids in a church where they passed the offering plate. You know, we don't do that here, but a church, they passed the offering plate, and these couple of boys sat next to a fellow they knew really had lots of money.

And they noticed that every week he put in one dime. And after two or three weeks of that, they confronted him out in the parking lot. They said, we've been watching you and we've noticed you only drop one dime in there. We know you can give more. And he quoted this, he said, the Lord loves a cheerful giver. That's all I can cheerfully give.

Alright, so here's Luke 21.5 and we call it A and B and that means there's actually three sections and A and B refers to the first couple of word sections.

And while some were talking about the temple that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts. Well, with all the descriptions we have of the temple, of course, it's not there now and it was completely torn apart. But all the descriptions we have was that that temple was really phenomenal. And in fact, at this point in time, it was still in process of being upgraded.

This second temple was one that replaced Solomon's temple that was torn down by the Babylonians around 586 BC. And so this reconstructed second temple was completed in 515. So that's kind of phase one of this temple. The upgrades, however, to the operating temple were begun under Herod the Not-So-Great. in 20 BC and finished in 63 AD, bottom line, about 30 years after this was taking place.

So there was still 30 years more upgrades to take place. Nonetheless, it was a very, very impressive structure, even though it was not yet complete. To give you some idea of how impressive the stone work and the gold work and everything was, The temple was an operating temple, right?

So they couldn't just let any craftsman come in and fix things up in this temple, right? So what they did is they had the craftsman who had the skills train and over the course of time with this inner part train a total of 10,000 Levites to do the work. 10,000 Levites were trained to do the work on this inner part of the temple that regular everyday people were not allowed to go into. And so these 10,000 Levites who were trained to work on this thing worked on gold work, and they worked on marble, and they worked on bronze items, both in the women's court and in the inner area as well.

And so this was just a spectacular structure. Even what you see on the top, the kind of spike structure, notice that? That was to keep the unclean birds off. So they had these gold spikes kind of in sharp triangles at the top to keep the unclean birds off, the nasty birds. That also kept things a little cleaner anyway.

So all this work, and 15 stories tall, we're talking about some real ladders. to get up there and do all this work. So this is really quite a structure, quite a bit of work, and you have to keep working on it while you're doing all the sacrifices, and the high priest is going into the Holy of Holies, and all different things going on around here, all have to take place while you're doing the work. But it also explains something else. At various times, it would be in that temple courtyard, and people would be, you know, very distraught and upset that Jesus was claiming to be deity, God.

And so where'd they find the stones? From the work that was being done, right? From the work that was being done. Because it was an ongoing construction, even 30 years left during this time that we're talking about here. So Josephus described it as a gleaming marble temple with a gold top and trim.

It was 15 stories tall, and the stones were given a custom bevel throughout. All of the stones in this temple, all given a custom bevel. Here's a shot on the tunnels, and here's Nancy and Courtney back there. Right about here, that's the bevel that they would put on all of the stones, all of them. And the stones were commonly 30 to 50 tons in weight. Among the largest was 580 tons.

But everything fit perfectly. You know they didn't use cement on these things. Everything fits so perfectly that just gravity and the weight of the stones would hold everything in place. Including acting as a retaining wall for dozens of feet high. It held all in place, just by gravity, in a very good fit.

Here would be another place. This is where the Romans dumped off the stones. And you can see even where it's somewhat left, there's that line with that same bevel. And then also right here, this one where they dumped it off and the stone broke. Even there, you see that bevel pattern.

And they had the bevel pattern on everything. Everything had the bevel pattern. Everything was very finely worked smooth. Everything fit together very, very well. It was fine craftsmanship. Herod spared no expense, even if it cost everybody else a lot.

So the other thing that this passage mentions is not just the fine stonework, as impressive as this stonework was, but the votive gifts. These were luxurious decorations of the temple to beautify it. So people who were wealthy or sometimes groups of people would get together and they would coordinate with the temple authorities, the high priests and all that, coordinate with them about, okay, we'd like to give this and have this look like this and they'd have drawings and things like that and designs and they'd talk to them about it and then That would be produced and then given as a gift to the temple and put in place. And so an example would be this golden vine and columns at the temple entrance.

This is from a model. If you look at those little priests that they have in there, the scale of this is immense. We're talking about a grape that is larger than a man's hand. Excuse me, a man's head. Larger than a man's head. Here in the so so when they have this decoration that you would see this vine from quite a distance Okay, it would not be just something you come up and look at it, but and notice off to the side Here's a guy with a ladder.

Okay, so this is an immense votive gift to give you an idea what that might be and so at various places around the temple they would have these very fancy very expensive and great craftsmanship gifts that would be given to the temple. So wealthy individuals and groups would work in cooperation with the temple authorities. That way, everything was more or less in keeping with the Law of Moses and the decorating styles and themes. So you wouldn't have, boy, that doesn't fit, right? So at any rate, this would be the votive gifts that they're talking about. And between the craftsmanship and those, and huge amounts of gold. It was just very impressive, and certainly was.

But, although it was a very nice building, there were some nasty people involved with it. The temple building itself was very impressive. Carefully crafted large stones, all with that perimeter bevel, the same in each one, the stones very carefully put together. set on very solid bedrock such that the stones now are not cracked after more than 19 centuries. Some of the stones are as long as over 40 feet long and no cracks over 19 centuries have developed. It was visible from far away. came over the Mount of Olives. You could see it. You've come from other directions. You could see it, especially this gleaming white marble temple with the gold trim on the top and at various parts.

However, the nasty people, including some of those running the temple, though there were individual exceptions, and we can think of, for example, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, A great many Jews in the land of Israel failed to see that their long-promised Messiah was walking right among them. He had been right there. And all they could think of was, let's think up a nasty, tricky question. Here's Luke 21, 5 and 6, and while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and bowed gifts, he said, As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which they will not be left one stone upon another, which will not be torn down."

And that was in fact the case. So we title this slide, Going, Going, Gone. So the upgrades of the Second Temple begun under Herod the Not-So-Great in 20 BC. And really, it's just amazing, impressive work. still under construction in the time of Christ will be ongoing until 63 AD looking forward from the time of Christ's ministry here and the things that Jesus just here said.

66 AD the Jews would rebel. They'd start at Masada and then they'd move to the fortress Antonia right there next to the temple and actually there were three waves of Roman retribution And the last wave came in the middle of the year, and then finally the Romans broke through in late summer.

The stones were contrary to the order of General Titus, later to become emperor. Contrary to the order of General Titus, the stones were all taken apart. The place was set on fire contrary to his order. but eventually taken apart every single one and dumped off as you see here. The archaeologists have gone through and cleaned up a lot of it but they left this to give an idea of what the temple destruction would have been like. So, if only the temple destruction was the worst of it.

So the Romans taking all the stones apart, dumping them off, and as you see breaking everything off. Robinson's Arch, as we saw last week, broken off Huge damage and of course then timber set on fire That would have been better if that was all that happened, but it wasn't For the Jews who fought in favor of fighting the Romans They slaughtered the Jews who refused to do so They did so not only in Jerusalem, but out in the villages and the towns and The slaughter of Jews against their fellow Jews was the worst of it. The Romans were not nice, believe me, but the slaughter of Jews against fellow Jews was worse. There was also the last known identifiable descendants of Esau who joined with the Jews in Jerusalem to fight against the Romans. They fought kind of on the south western part of Jerusalem. So Luke 21 7, and they question him saying, Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?

So we have here on page 3 a kind of a table that goes across the width of your handout. And it's a look at Luke here and the passages will be looking at there and then also looking at Matthew and Mark and the parallel passages that are there. And so we find that there are certain questions asked here. When will these things be, which is in Mark and Matthew and in Luke. And then we find other questions that are in Luke, but also in Matthew and Mark. So in total, we get actually a number of questions and Jesus is answering lots of different things. And of course, our focus will be on this passage here in Luke, but we'll make note of the other passages as we go along. And one of the things to remember, this is a very Jewish context. So these men are asking this question.

Here they are. They've just walked out of This just immense temple, beautiful temple, phenomenal stone work and gold work on this thing. When they finally shut it down, they laid off 18,000 men. There's that much intense craftsmanship going into this thing. And there was a riot, of course, because they didn't like to be laid off. But the work was done. The work was considered complete.

And so everything in here is a very Jewish context. There is the temple, which Jews had worked on in great part, and especially the inner temple, which had only been those who are qualified to work on it. These are Jews. These are Jews in a Jewish land who have come since they were very young. to this temple and it's in fact where Jesus you know came to with Joseph and Mary at about age 12 and so they had spent years here under the law of Moses here in this temple and the idea this would all be just torn apart that was rather stunning.

These men had not yet understood what was going to transpire in the next 50 days that Jesus would ascend, and the dates and the timing are such that the evidence is now leaning in the direction of the crucifixion two days after this, less than 48 hours, April 3rd, 33 AD, resurrection, April 5th, 33 AD, Jesus ascends, May 14th, 33 AD, and May 28th, It's the day of Pentecost. They had no idea what was going to happen during that period of time. Even Jesus being crucified just totally blew their circuits.

Peter's ready to fight, even if it means cutting off the high priest's servant's ear. Peter's ready to fight. This has just got them terrified. Peter even denies Christ. He's so terrified and doesn't understand what's happening. They would not understand what's happening in the next 50 days, much less the decades and centuries and eons to come. Even after Jesus tells them the things here, Acts chapter 1, they're still asking, well, is now the time you're going to establish your kingdom for Israel? So they don't get what he's saying here.

So where are they? We have the insight from Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that this conversation here, these questions and Jesus' answers, took place in the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount, so the view is similar to what you see here, overlooking the Temple Mount there in Jerusalem. So they're headed back towards Bethany at the Mount of Olives looking back at the temple when he begins answering their questions. So having come out of the temple in the temple courtyards there on the Mount of Olives as Jesus answers these questions boiled down this way, when?

What's the sign, right? And you know how Jews are with signs. Pick one, right? So anyway, so now here we have in Luke 21.8, and he said, See to it that you are not misled, for many will come in my name. A few? No, many will come in my name, saying, I'm He. The time is near. Do not go after them. Okay? Do not go after them. Isn't it interesting? They ask a question, the first thing he says, Do not. be misled.

Here are instances of false Christs coming up. This is from the mouth of Gamaliel, who was Paul's rabbi, from Acts 5, 36 and 37. For some time ago, Thutis rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of about 400 men joined up with him. But he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. So Jesus says, don't follow that kind of guy. After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away some people after him. And he too perished, and all those who followed him were scattered."

And here's Acts 21, 38. Then you are not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt and led the 4,000 men of the assassins, also known as the Sicarii or the Sicarians, out into the wilderness. This is the centurion in Jerusalem talking to the Apostle Paul. So we have instances even in the book of Acts of these kinds of false Christs and people that get groups together.

Jesus says, do not get mixed up with them. And so we titled this next slide, Wait Until It's the Real Jesus. Make sure you wait until the right time. Before telling about the timing of all these things, because remember the question was when. And before talking about the signs or anything else, Jesus first warns them, do not be misled. You see, there are people who have other kinds of Jesuses. All kinds of Jesuses can come along. Buddy Jesus. Here's backpacking Jesus. Here's hitchhiking Jesus.

Revolutionary Jesus, which is of course one of the things that Jesus is warning about here. It's important that we wait for the right one and not get misled and follow others who are not the real thing. So the disciples had the real Jesus there right in front of them. You say, don't be misled. I am He. Don't let anybody else convince you that they are He. Fake Christs have come about and will come about claiming to be Jesus or to know when and where and who. Hey, He's over here. He showed up over here. Come over this way. You'll find Him here. Let me introduce you to this Jesus guy.

Only it's a fake. Fake timing too. Not only will there be fake Christ, but there will be fake timing. Remember, the last question is when. Jesus warned the disciples about these fakes. And we can take the warning actually for ourselves and in our time as well. When it comes to prophecy, there's no end to the fake messiahs, the false dates and warnings, terrible interpretations of scripture such that many are skeptical or others are confused. Many will be misled.

So over the centuries, in fact, there has been lots of confusion about these matters resulting from what was injected into what Christ taught about things to come. Jesus taught about a coming tribulation, his second coming, a millennial kingdom to follow. Others, since then, starting about 200 AD, have added all kinds of other ideas. All kinds of other ideas.

Some of the later confusions are Christ is king and the church is his kingdom. The Roman destruction of Jerusalem was the second coming. You see, because it's coming in the clouds, right? And that's the clouds of the Romans' feet stomping up and down on the ground. Right? So Jesus coming in the clouds is the Romans coming into Jerusalem, according to these folks.

That's called Preterism. And there are actually quite a few who follow that. Seventh-day Adventism teaches Preterism. A lot of folks out of the Reformed camp I teach preterism, that Christ has already come in some form or another through the Roman soldiers attacking Jerusalem. That's the second coming.

Luke 21.9, when you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified, for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.

You see, a lot of people, when things start happening, they assume, oh, it must be the end. Is that true? No. That's the reason for this caution. is not to all of a sudden conclude that whatever's happening in our time is somehow a signal, oh, the Lord must be coming back soon. People easily draw the wrong conclusions. Back then, in those times, people drew the wrong conclusions about what was a sign of the end, and so Jesus is cautioning them but also in our own time. Wars and disturbances of all sorts of great turbulence does not mean the end of Jerusalem or the end of the world for that matter.

We're having crazy things happen in our world right now. Does that mean that it's automatically the end? No, it does not. Nor does such things mean that that's the end now. Christ will not come again or rapture us because we think it's about the right time. Now would be a good time for him to come, right? I would sure like to be raptured. I hope it's today. But I can't claim it, right? I can't promise it. Here are some examples. In 632, Muhammad died. And it caused, because he did not have a clear succession, it caused a division among the Muslims.

And so rather than fighting each other to the death, They went out into Asia, they went out into North Africa, and they went into Europe. So that by 732, one century after Muhammad's death, they were turning away the Muslim invasion of Europe at Tours, France. There was a massive attack, and so this Muslim invasion went all the way over into Western Europe, went in through the western part of North Africa, went all the way over to the Philippines.

So they invaded fiercely and ferociously. People thought, well, this is so horrible, this must be the last time. This must be the end, right? Then, because that was the 7th and 8th centuries and the 9th and the 10th centuries. Then the Vikings took their turn invading into Europe and they had more of, instead of invading and taking the territory, more of a kind of a surprise attack approach and they had come in with their ships and do a surprise attack in certain areas and then haul off booty and then come back and attack at another place by surprise. But the 9th and the 10th centuries, it was the Vikings and people thought, oh, this is terrible. It must be the end. Now, we're not done.

Remember the Y2K scare? Remember all that? You better turn your computer off at December 31st, 1999, because it's going to go crazy the next day at midnight. Remember that? Well, guess what? There was a Y1K frenzy, too. Everybody thought that, oh, 1,000 years, that's 1,000 AD. And so everybody would go sell everything and put on white robes and stand on a mountaintop.

So that kind of thing happened. That's not it. In our own time, 88 reasons why the Rapture will be in 1988. It was written by this guy whose last name looks like Wise Nut. Anyway. So, anyway, guess what? It didn't happen. And so guess what he wrote next year? 89 reasons why the rapture will be in 1989, right? So, I mean, whoo!

So you got that kind of thing going on. Then you got this guy named Harold Camping recently. I wish he was just camping. Actually, it so happens that the guy that set him up was a friend of our family. But anyway, he went more and more off track, and he also separated from the friend of our family, and went more and more off track until finally he said, the rapture is going to be May 23, 2011. And that didn't happen. He says, oh, that was the spiritual rapture. And then he said, the rapture and the end of the world would be October 21, 2011. Of course, that never happened. And you know what's funny about all these guys that give false rapture dates? Eventually the Lord takes them home. Come here, we need to talk, right? So these false rapture days are no good.

And you may remember December 21st, 2012. Remember that was going to be the end of the Mayan calendar and people tried to put that in with Bible prophecy and all that kind of stuff. All I can say is, see this guy in the circle with his tongue sticking out? Yeah, he's sick of all this stuff. Anyway, okay.

Remember the blood moon stuff, you may have heard of that. You know, the blood moons and they got, you know, oh it means this and that and the other thing means nothing at all. It has no connection to scripture. There have been blood moons all the way along for centuries and doesn't mean a thing.

So here's Luke 21, 10 and 11. Then he continued by saying to them, nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be great earthquakes in various places, plagues and famines. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

So these guys are going, whoa! But one of the things that's happening as he steps out here, he's kind of expanding the time frame that he's talking about. They're asking, about the destruction of Jerusalem, and he's going to start doing, as we'll see here, going, yeah, he'll answer that question, but he's going to tell them things like, you know, you guys are going to go through persecutions of different kinds, and start explaining that, and there's other things that are going to happen, and then he's going to explain about his second coming, so he's going to actually expand as we go into these passages. into times way beyond the lifetimes of the disciples and into things surrounding the second coming. So the next couple of times we go into it, we'll take a look at that. It's important for us not to jump to false conclusions.

It has been the pattern of everyone over time to try to associate what's going on in their time and connect it up with Bible prophecy. It's just that's been a pattern. Martin Luther did it. And for people to try to connect it up with Bible prophecy and guess who's the Antichrist? Some kind of crazy notion about what numbers are inside the Pope's funny looking hat. So things like that. When John Kennedy was killed, I heard people talking about, oh, there's the Antichrist because he had this wound and he's going to get resurrected.

And people are going off with all sorts of fanciful things. And the bottom line is, we don't need to do that. The Lord knows the time. Isn't that good enough? There will be a moment, the Lord will say, the Father will say to the Son, go get your bride. And the Father will call the time. It'll be just the right time. And it won't be the time, probably, that we think is the right time. But it will be the right time, because it'll be the Father's.

Here is Paul's perspective on what the Jews are seeking, and what the Greeks are seeking. This is 1 Corinthians 1, 22-24. For indeed, Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God." And we have again this perspective from the Apostle Paul, Philippians 3, 20-21. And this, I think, is critical for us to get squared away on, because people will be looking at, oh, this is happening, and that's happening, and they'll be looking around thinking these are all signs. Do you know the next thing prophetically that's going to happen is the rapture? There's nothing else that has to happen between now and the rapture, okay?

Prophetically speaking, it doesn't matter what ISIS does. It doesn't matter how this next election turns out. It doesn't matter how many countries join or break away from the European Union. The next thing that's going to happen prophetically is the rapture. And nothing has to happen before that. And all the crazy things that are going on in the world may have no biblical significance at all. So don't worry about this next election.

Ephesians 1.10 says everything will be summed up in Christ. It says God is managing everything to be summed up in Christ.

So here's the Philippians 3.20 and 21 passage.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly await for a Savior. How do we wait? Eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Just in case you wondered. who will transform the body of our humble state, and boy is this thing getting humbler all the time, into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

The next thing that's going to happen is this place where we have a citizenship right now, He's going to take us there. That's the next thing that's going to happen. and we're not waiting for anything else to happen, and all the crazy things that happen in the world, and there are just absolutely crazy things that have happened, are happening, and will happen. With all that, this is next. This is next.

So we're going to be looking at how did Jesus answer these things. From us in the body of Christ, this is our perspective. That's what I'm looking forward to. I'm looking forward to the coming of Christ for me. I'm not looking forward to the coming of the Antichrist. I have my eyes on Christ, not the Antichrist. Because he's what's next.

And that's wonderful news. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the blessed hope, the wonderful, great hope that we have. And though we know there's nothing in the way, nothing that has to happen first, you could wait a while longer to have us come to be home with you. But even if not, Lord, we just look to you and we just thank you for what you revealed because you love us and you want us to understand. But that we have this blessed hope and that has to be the first thing we're looking for. And so we do ask for that. Lord, come quickly. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.