From Prophecy to End Times: A Journey Through Luke 21

Show Notes

Episode 365:
We continue our journey through the Gospels, focusing on Luke 21 and Jesus' teachings about the end times. From the destruction of the temple to the signs in the heavens, we discuss the weighty implications and the hope that lies beyond. The episode takes a historical detour to Masada, linking past events to the prophecies Jesus spoke of. It's a blend of biblical teachings and historical facts that will leave you pondering long after the episode ends.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey everybody, I'm Chris, this is Jeff, and we are the Bible Guys, and we're here today to bring you a great segment and a great word. Oh boy, Well, then we better up our game because we've been mailing it in all week. So if this is going to be a great one, we got to really step it up. Yeah. Well the segment today, well I know, so the fact that we're bringing our a game today means we have to roll it back out. It feels like we haven't asked Chris his favorite question in a while. That's right, it's been several weeks. So what made Chris mad this week? Yes, that's our favorite. This question, Our favorite question is what made Chris mad? I'm not sure it's everybody's favorite. Oh, it's everybody's face, It's it's it's a few people's favorite. It's everybody's favorite. So I definitely thought of one immediately, which is why we love it so much. It takes see like three and a half seconds to think of Oh I made me mad as I came in I noticed that we were doing it, and I said, I already have one, because I've been building up for like three weeks or whatever. Yeah, we haven't done one. We've done one. So here's the reason why is because it was probably a couple of weeks ago. I saw somebody stuck in the snow, and so what I'm doing is I'm leaving my subdivision. And there was this girl who was I don't know, she was like a college student, you know, she was probably like twenty one years old. She was a different culture, you know, and I don't know if she expected me not to stop because you know, or something like that, just because the age difference or the culture difference or whatever. But she she didn't even look my way. So I mean when I mean she was stuck listening to me. Our subdivision like it actually like it's flat, you know, the road is flat, and then when it goes down into the main road there's like a hill. Well, somehow she had driven so fast toward our subdivision, which I means she wasn't going fast like up and down, up and down the road. She must have been crossing the road because she was heading directly. You know, you don't you don't get that kind of speed and then somehow make a left hand turn and go perpendicular with that kind of speed. She must have hit this hill so hard because she ended up going up at like a thirty degree angle. She stuck, her whole car stuck in snow, and it almost was about a foot away from the lamppost. And then she and her car was dented with the next to the sign, and she's completely stuck. I'm literally snowing really hard. I'm pulling out of my subdivision. I'm late somewhere, but I'm thinking, hey man, this poor girl must have just gotten there because she stole in her car. So I got out of my car. I decided to walk over to the window. Of course, immediately this snows like a foot deep, which means like my shoes are already, you know, completely wet and dran straight. So I'm already sacrificing a lot just to even go up to her. I am a good guy. And then she rolls down her window and I said, hey man, I go this doesn't look fun, and she says, well, I was just about to call a towing company, and because she was at a thirty degree angle, I thought I bet you that if I leverage myself and and I and I put my back against this you know light pole, I could rock her out of there because gravity's on, you know, on my side. And I said, what if I push you out? And you're pretty tough, You're tough. I'm a scrappy guy. You're a tough guy. Yeah. Yeah, So I said, what if I push out and she goes? I don't think so, I'm in here really deep, and she really was. Her whole car was submerged in this snow. And I said, let's try. So I literally shimmy myself in between. And she's reversing it, and I'm rocking this thing, and I'm giving it everything I have right right, and you know, she's she's spinning the tires and I'm telling like, I'm almost screaming at this point, and I give it everything I have. And sure enough, man, I rock her out of there, and she and she backs out into into this street in the main throwaway and then and then she pulls back out and uh and literally I'm like, you know, trying to get myself out of this snow bank. And here's what made me mad. You would, oh no, right, you would think that she would take just a second to roll down the window and go, oh my gosh, thank you so much for stopping, thank you for doing that, because I've just saved her two hours of waiting for triple A. Right, I've just saved her probably about one hundred and seventy five dollars for just a tow truck call let alone where she wants to be towed, right, you know whatever, or just a pulling out, you know, maybe that whatever, whatever, all that stuff. She just avoided all of that, all right. But by the way, I would have even here he comes to save the day. I would have even thought at least a wave would be good. Right, Yeah, So she pulls out, she drives by me, She looks over me, and she just gives like a little nod. You know, wasn't even like a smile nod. It was more like a like you're a stranger at the elevator, or I'm going to give you a courtesy nod. Okay, right, and then drives away. Wow. And I'm standing there, and of course, you know I'm old when I'm blaming the gen this generation, this generation, right, And I'm thinking to myself, like I'm like I'm like, and so then here's and then here's no one else. This is horrible. I actually thought to myself immediately I judged her and thought, this is a girl who has everything handed to her in life. She knows no value of money. Her dad's you know why, because it didn't save her one hundred and seventy dollars. So you're not just mad at her, you're mad at her parents. Now, yes, her parents are bad parents, bad parents. I'm like, I'm like, I didn't save her. She was just gonna call dad. Wow, right, so dad gives her everything. Apparently dad does everything for her, because what kind of person would not say, oh, my goodness, thank you, because we don't know the price of much do it? Because you're kind of a scary guy, Chris, she didn't want to roll her window down. I was not friendly, which exactly, Yeah, you're so scary to her that she wouldn't put the window down. So if you have any thoughts on this one, why don't you just share though senat info at the Bible guys dot com. Chris know, in that moment, I became because I just judged her, and I actually thought to myself, this generation because anybody who is fifting up would have literally gone, oh my goodness, Well, Chris, maybe you just laid up treasures in heaven. Maybe you don't need the praise, not anymore, because I just graped. God took away my thinking. I was. I was mad for this whole generation, like I became outraged for the whole generation. Right, So you just want to tell everybody straighten up. When when Chris stops to help you, you should thank you. No, no, all enthusiastically, not a Remember, Jeff, I don't get mad for me. I get mad on behalf of the world, which means if anybody stops and helps you, that's right. If anything lets you in, anybody who helps you, by the way, somebody lets you in on a merge, give him the wave. Think be thank you because everything's okay after the wave. When someone sacrifices for you, be thankful. Yeah, and express express people show a little gratitude. People come on, okay, thank you, Chris, You're welcome. So there you go. It is half of the world. Yeah, well, thank you. You're looking out for us. What would we do with you looking at not even kidding when I say I can't believe she didn't. She didn't say thank you. I was a palled. So this is like my fourth time to hear the story, and I keep laughing every time. So yeah, all right, okay, So he people, if you haven't heard that story before, He's been ranting about this for three weeks, so I'm glad he could get that off his chest. And I've only told her a couple of times. They just happened to be in front of you, that's all, okay. So today we are continuing in the grouping of verses that we started off in Matthew, then we got to Mark, and now Luke. The first portion of this passage is talking about what it's going to be like with Jesus' return right the end times. Really, it's what he's talking about. So here's what it says. In Luke, chapter twenty one, verse five, it says some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stone work of the temple and the memorial decorations on the walls, but Jesus said, the time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another teacher. They asked, when will all this happen? What sign will show us that these things are about to take place? And he replied, don't let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming I am the Messiah and saying the time has come. But don't believe them. And when you hear of wars and insurrections, don't panic. Yes, these things must take place first, but the end won't follow immediately. Then he added, national go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There'll be great earthquakes, and there'll be famines and plagues in many lands, and they'll be terrifying things and great miraculous signs from heaven. But before all this, there will be a time of great persecution. You'll be dragged into synagogues and prisons, and you will stand trial before kings and governors because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell them about me. So don't worry in advance about how to answer the charges against you, for I will give you the right words and such wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to reply or refute you. Even those closest to your parents, brothers, relatives, and friends will betray you. They will even kill some of you, and everyone will hate you because you are my followers. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm, you will win your souls. And when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that the time of its destruction has arrived. Then those in Judea must flee to the hills, those in Jerusalem must get out, and those in the country should not return to the city. For those will be the days of God's vengeance. The prophetic words the scriptures will be fulfilled. How terrible it will be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days, for they will be disaster in the land and great anger against this people. They will be killed by the sword or sent away as captives to all the nations of the world. And Jerusalem will be trampled down by the gentiles until the period of Gentiles comes to an end. Wow, So there you go, and it goes on from there. We're going to go back and we're going to pick up the other the ending of those three chapters over the next three days next week. But yeah, so there's a little bit of confusion here because some of what he's talking about is the very end times, and some of what he's talking about is the destruction of Jerusalem is coming into their lifetime. So Jesus, for us, what we're asking is when is this going to happen? They were asking when is it going to happen? And Jesus said, it's going to start with the destructor of Jerusalem and then in some time all these other things will happen. Yeah. Well, now some of these things have happened. We look back at it, the destruction of Jerusalem and people fleeing into the hills, and some of it has not yet happened. We're looking forward to it. And by the way, that's one thing. Yeah, that's one thing that's very different about the Luke passage, and that remember yesterday we talked about. The thing that was different is we knew that it was Peter, James, John and Andrew that did the asking. So once again we read in Luke and they said they asked him, right, so now we know who is doing the asking. However, in this particular one they talked about. And by the way, let me just side note this and say, whenever Jesus gives details, just let us not look over the magnitude the weight of the fact that Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple, and then of course it happens in seventy eight, right, But then then he adds a detail in the Book of Luke, at least Luke remembers and records it. Right, even though he said it in front of everybody. He says that there will be fleeings, right he said, for he said, you must flee to the hills, and those in Jerusalem must get out, and they'll go into the country. They should not return to the city. And so he talks about how there's going to be this great mass exodus. Now whenever thing's unfold in scripture, exactly the way that Jesus talks about it, what it should do is it should reinforce the fact that God's promises are true. So the way that translates for translates for us is I'm about to read about some of the fleeing here, But what I'm saying is is that, like that's how we know when God gives us promises about our lives, about you know, who He's called us to be and having a future, and you know how he'll we should never doubt when he says, I'll always be with you, and I'll give you peace that passes understanding. I'll give you strength and the power to endure, and all these different things. We should believe them because what Jesus says is true and it's backed up right here, which is just wonderful. So there's a side note that talks about the city of Masada, and it says, when Jesus fortress, it's a fortress. Yeah, well, yeah, it's a fortunate life. Afbcation study Bible. There's a lot of maps and a lot of pictures and that's right that and so they have a picture actually of this place from an air of view, which is extremely cool. Yeah, you're right. It's not a city, it's a fortress. It's a place on a hill. And it says Jesus warned the destruction of Jerusalem would lead to a mass migration of Jerusalem and Luke twenty twenty one. But then some of those who left Jerusalem went to Masada, a towering rock fortress that sits fourteen hundred feet high, which if you're seeing this picture, holy Cow on the western shore of the Dead Sea. And when the first Jewish Revolt began in sixty six a D. A number of Zelots took over Masada, which had been occupied by a small Roman garrison. And after this destruction of Jerusalem and seventy a d. The Romans removed a pocket of Jewish resistance into the fortress. Only the fortress of Messada remained. And I'll let you tell the end of this story because it's extremely cool because you actually visited Masada. Yeah, yeah, I've been to Masada. So Haird the Great actually built a big portion of this. It's a giant hill fourteen hundred feet high. You get to it by a cable car, so you're down there by the Dead Sea. It did not exist back then. You had to hike up it, and there are little trails and tunnels up the side of it where you can hike it. I chose not to, Yes, cable car, this is good choice. Yeah, it's one hundred degrees out there. Chose yes. So Heird the Great had built this where there's a palace built into the mountain, like caves and things, just big terraces out and then this fortress all around walls. It's almost completely impregnable and incredibly difficult to get to. So when and it was like going to be his last stand. If he ever got you betrayed by the Romans, he would go. There was his plan. He built several fortresses like this. He never used, there's no evidence that he was ever even there, but he built it. So they these these Sakari rebels take over and there it's the last stand for the Jewish people against the Romans. When the Romans decided they're going to destroy everything, and there's nine hundred and sixty warriors or fighters up there with their families, and over the course of several months they laid the Romans laid siege all the way around this this mountain and then this fortress, and then they began to build a ramp with stones and packed earth all the way up. It took months and months and months to do it. And then finally they invaded, and as they came in, they discovered all nine hundred and sixty people committed suicide rather than die at the hand of the Romans. And so the Jewish people see that as a as a great testament in there. It's kind of their Alamo, right yeah, right, kind of thing where where they they stood knowing they were going to die, but they stood and fought until the last man. Right. It's kind of that same idea here that these people knew that they were going to die, but they weren't going to die at the hands of the Romans. And so that's what that is. And even today, that fortress is still there and right near the Dead Sea. Yeah. And by the way, I encourage all of our curious listeners who want to google it's messada m A S A d A. Just google a picture of that and hopefully you'll get an air of you and you'll see that the front where you see all those little chambers, that's where Herod built his fortress and this change. This this fortress would have had rations of food, right Oh yeah, yeah, he had They had food up there for for months and months and months, maybe years. There was a cistern, they had water, they had everything they could be. And then there's walls. If you look at it, there's walls that go all the way around that whole mesa right where they had set up in battlements and things. It's really neat. I've got a really great photo of my wife and I are standing there looking through this window out into the Dead Sea Valley. The valley where the Dead Sea is through this window inside of I think it was like some officers quorders or something. It's pretty neat. Yeah, it's really really humbling, right, anytime you're in a place like the Alamo or like Masada where people died bravely, you know, it's a very humbling thing. Make you think of the courage of humanity to stand against oppression, because that's what that was. Yeah. So, like I said, portions of these prophecies are all of them when Jesus said them were in the future, but he is referencing some of the things that had happened in the past. The edmuin prophet's side by Daniel. So Jesus is living in the flow of all these prophecies. Some had happened, some were going to happen very soon, some will happen in the end, and you just have to understand that. So one of these it's not in this passage, but it was in the other two, and I didn't comment on them. Is two times, once in Matthew, once in Mark, it mentions, what was it the the religious object that causes desecration standing in the temple? Remember where you should not be? And he said the day it's coming when you can see that. So this happened several times. The sacrilegious object, other translations would have it be the abomination of desolation, all those kinds of things. So it refers to the desecration of the temple by God's enemies, and that happened many times. It happened repeatedly in Israel's history five ninety seven BC, when nebuknezraluded the entire temple and he took the Judean captives to Babylon. That's in Second Chronicles. That in one sixty eight BC, when Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed the pig de Zeus on the altar in the temple, right, that was, they would view that as this object of desolation, this horrible thing. In eighty seventy when the Roman general Titus placed an idol on the side of the burned out temple, so after they destroyed it, knocked down everything, they set up an idol there in the temple. That happened. And then later on, just years later, after Jesus gave this warning in AD thirty eight, the emperor Caligula made plans to put his own statue of himself in the temple and then died, So it's really interesting. And then now if you go there, there's the Alaksa Mosque and there's the Dome of the Rock, which is a sacred space for Islam. So for many, many, many many times, non sacred Jewish items are at the temple place. And Jesus said, that's one of the signs of the end, is that you're going to lose control of this place. And from the day of the Romans destroying the temple, there was no temple. And then in the six hundred seven hundreds, you know, the Muslims took over that space, and it's been a fight back and forth, back and forth until finally in the during the Crusades, finally now you've got the Alaksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and all that kind of stuff there. So it's really an amazing thing. How Jesus described that it would happen, and they immediately knew it was happening, and it happened to over and over and over and over again. It keeps happening. So, yeah, that's that's pretty incredible. Yeah, And and so again when when, uh, it's important to know because we didn't say this today, we said it yesterday. But when Jesus talks about the things that are becoming, uh, it's not for the purpose of scaring us, right, because because he said, he said, uh, uh, he said, don't don't be fearful. Right, what did he say? He said, There'll be a time you'll be dragging the synagogues, he said, but don't worry in advance about how you'll answer against the charges against you. I'll give you the right words and show you such wisdom. And and then and he also says don't be afraid at one point in this particular passage. So so it is it is a thing too. It's a very fearful thing to worry about all the persecution. And uh, you know the fact that he said many of you will die. He even said, uh, there was there'll be some who will even betray you, and some some of you will be even betrayed by friends and relatives and brothers. I mean, those predictions are very scary. But the reason why he's saying, don't be afraid. Shouldn't be surprised when family members turned against us, or when friends turned against us for our faith, right, right, And so he says. When he says don't be afraid, what he's really saying is is that in the end, when you have God on your side, everything, you know, everything's going to be okay, even if you lose your life, because you can't threaten threaten their Christian with heaven. And when it comes down to it, you know, I just got done reading what was it. It was the apostle Paul who wrote, if God before us, who could be against us? Right to whom shall we be afraid? Romans? Right, Yeah, in Romans, And so you know, when it comes down to it, that's really what he's saying. He's saying, stay with me, you know, be on my side. And and if God is for you, there's nobody that really can truly stand against you. That's right, and that should be an encouraging time for us, or encouraging word for us. You don't have to be afraid, he tells us, He says, so that we know he's in control, but he didn't tell us he's things to be terrified. And then if you do face persecution that brings you to the end of your life. He says, you don't have to be afraid. There, you're not going to go through this alone. Right, And then it's interesting he says, not even a hair of your head will perish, which is interesting because he just said and many of you will die. So clearly Jesus is understanding this world is not really home. This isn't all there is what he's saying, because he goes on, he says, by standing firm, you'll win your souls. He's saying here he's talking about eternity. So that's what you remember yesterday you made that joke about me talking about cancer and saying, hey, you can't threaten a real believer in with heaven. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's a joke, right, Yeah, So because that's what I said, and I really believe that you can't threaten a real Christian with heaven. And so Jesus is not really concerned about this world. He's concerned about you. But man alive, Heaven is so much better, and he's been there. So he goes, yeah, so this is gonna be difficult. I'm not telling it to you to be afraid. I'm just telling you how good heaven is. And then all of eternity, not a hair of your head is going to be disturbed, nothing. You will be in paradise. So don't worry about this peace too much. And I think that that's the real lesson. We can take care. So he didn't tell you these things are scary. You told him, so you know that he's in control. And he wins. Yeah. And in the meantime, you know, until our lives, you know, possibly could get threatened. You know, you may get persecuted from your faith and it won't be a life threatening thing, but it'll be more like it'll cost you maybe a little bit of a reputation, or it'll cost you a relationship. And so when our faith does get persecuted to the point where it starts to cost us, this is an encouragement for us to stand strong and stay true to God, because no matter the cost, standing up for Jesus is worth the price. That's right. So the next week we're going to pivot back and read the second half of these three chapters that we read, and he talks about signs happening in the stars and Jesus's return and so it's super exciting, right, so look up. That's right, that's right, all right, Well, hopefully you'll tune in and we'll see you then next time on the bibble Guys,