Be Vigilant: Understanding the Signs of Jesus' Return

Show Notes

Episode 367:
Today, we dive into some fascinating discussions about Jesus' return and the signs to look out for. We explore how Jesus used storytelling and illustrations to convey powerful messages, connecting the dots between Old Testament prophecies and current times. It's insightful, eye-opening, and, as always, filled with our trademark banter and humor. We reflect on the dynamic nature of God's word and how it continues to surprise and inspire us, even after years of studying it. Plus, we discuss the importance of not just learning facts but applying them to our lives for real transformation.

What is The Bible Guys?

Whether you’ve been following Jesus for years or you’re just starting to ask questions, there’s a seat for you here.

Join Jeff and Chris for honest conversations about Scripture, faith, and the everyday stuff we all navigate. With humor, personal stories, and plenty of back-and-forth, The Bible Guys explore what the Bible says and how it connects to your life.

Subscribe, bring your questions, and get to know the Bible one conversation at a time. Head over to TheBibleGuys.com for more information!

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Okay, Chris, you got to make it both fun and practical. Oh well that's frend to Connor. And yeah, well he's calling us friends first. We got to work on that one. Well, the practice will come later, but for now, Yeah, yeah, here we go. So we're going to do a taboo. It's guess the word. So it's it's the same rule as as taboo. I have a word that I'm trying to get you to say, and I have a list of five words I'm not allowed to say. So for those people watching and not listening, we'll put the words up on the screen that Jeff is not allowed to say, but not the answer. And then for those for everybody listening, including watching, you just try to guess the word before I do. Right, let me see if I can do it in one sentence. Okay, that's my challenge today. The largest land animal elephant. There you go. Were you not allowed to say? I was not allowed to say trunk, ivory mammal, trunk again and zoo. She wrote trunk twice, So don't you dare say Trunk. Yeah, yeah, I tried not to. Actually, it's all I can think of. When I saw Trunk twice, I'm just thinking, said Dumbo is a yeah, yeah, large work too. Yeah I did. Yeah, it's okay, thanks for correcting me. You still got your point, you got. I just told you what I would have is not a correction offering what I could have done. It would have been better, you know what. No, I didn't do any of that. Yes. Uh, you go to the theater to watch Swan Lake. What is swan Lake? Is that a Broadway show? No, Swan Lake, I don't even know it's one like this? That a musical? No? Is that they wear tights? Oh, it's a ballet. There you go. Okay, that was a real one. Were you not dance? Point to to bear? I b A R R E? What is that? And girl? Oh I would have got it if you'd said that Cracker. I don't know what is a song inside of? Well? Did you know that swan Likes actually a movie too? Okay? And it's a subdivision down the street and the sandwich shop right, okay, okay, that's where you like the water ski Okay? Uh, your favorite kind of comic books are spider Man okay, and he is a superhero. There you go, superhero. I wasn't an to say cat Cape, mask powers, secret identity or Batmanatman. So buddy, okay, uh okay. In the summer, yep, everyone goes out at night and looks up in the sky together star to see what stars? No, no, no, it's an event. People buy a bunch of them and uh and shoot them into the sky. Fireworks. There you go, fireworks. And then this is a hard one. Oh wait, you didn't tell what you was allowed to say, Sparkler explosion Fourth of July celebration or America. Oh so that's what hard one? Yeah? Yeah, America. Yeah yeah, I could have said no, like I say that. Let me see. Oh oh oh, I got this one. So when you went to uh Florida last year with your buddies, right the guys, he had an electric one? Oh, a bike, a bicycle, bicycle. There you go, pedals, wheels, handlebars, brakes and exercise. I couldn't say wow, So good job you got them all man. Thanks took a while on the ballet, but hey, we'll forgive you. I don't know that zac Efron has ever done a ballet, so how would you know whatever? Whatever? And by the way, he should okay, by the way on that on that bicycle electric bicycle thing. Yes, So it was like I call it the old man trip, you know. So I'm in my fifties. Two guys I was with were in their seventies, and this is who I went down and spent a week in Florida for a wild time. You're a wild time man. They stayed up past four thirty in the afternoon. And actually what end up happening was we got these electric bikes and we went really far. We went from like Clearwater all the way to Duneaton, right, and we went and got some ice cream everything else. And on the way back, one of the batteries on the electric bike dies. Right. Well, you know this seventy year old guy that I'm with, right, he's a man's man, like, he's super strong. He was like a boxer his whole life. I mean, he's just a really strong guy. Right, And he goes, Chris, he goes, how about this? He goes, you get on my bike and I'll pedal this home. And you know, we're in one hundred and twenty degree heat into Florida in the summer, right, And I'm like, I'm like, you're gonna pedal home? And he say yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so I'm like, okay, Rick, all right, I'll give it to you. So he gets on the pedal. We literally pedal for half a block. We get to the intersection and I pull up to him and I look at him and he he looks like he's ready to pass out. He's breathing heavy, he looks like faint. And I was like, dude, I said, just give me back the bike, because you know, those things are hard to pay. They're heavy, They're really really heavy. And I said, I just passed a restaurant. I said, you guys, I said, ride home. I'm gonna go in the restaurant have a bowl of soup. It was actually chowder, right, I said, I said to get some Yeah, I'm gonna go get some seafood chow. I have some chowder and some prunes. And I said come back and get me with the car. And that was how we did it. So but yeah, it was totally an old guy's trip. It was really fun though. Electric bikes are fun. Okay, So there you go. That was that, Yes, and I got to tell you that was a fun one for me, because guessing is not hard. Yes, Hey, everyone, if you're listening on one of the audio platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Speaker, would you do us a favor? Would you take just a moment and follow us? Because I'm worth following, and Jeff is along with me, so you know you can follow him. I guess too, by proxy, but or just share it, you know, because people need to be introduced to the Bible guy and his companion named Jeff. So we are continuing this conversation that Jesus was telling all about his return. Yes, and so we've already done the first half and the second half of Matthew chapter twenty four. We did the second the first half of Luke chapter I mean of Mark chapter thirteen, and the first half of Luke chapter twenty one. So today we're gonna come back and we're going to pick up doing the second half of Luke thirteen. Yeah, it'll be similar. Yesterday's probably very similar. Yeah, yeah, we're going to point out the differences. That's correct. So we're going to start Mark chapter thirteen, verse twenty four. Jesus said at that time, after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then everyone will see the Sun of Man coming on the clouds with great power and glory, and he will send out his angels to gather his chosen ones from all over the world, from the farthest ends of the Earth and heaven. Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things taking place, you can know that his return is very near, right at the door. I tell you the truth. This generation will not pass from the scene. Before all these things take place. Heaven and Earth will disappear, But my words will never disappear. However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. And since you don't know when that time will come, be on guard, stay alert. The coming of the Son of Man will be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip when he left home, he gave each of his slaves instructions about the work they were to do, and he told the gatekeeper to watch for his return. You too, must keep careful, watch for you don't know when the master of the household will return in the evening night, before dawn or at daybreak. Don't let him find you sleeping when he arrives without warning. I say to you what I say to everyone, watch for him. M Yeah, so this one, it's all about vigilance, be watchful. Yes, I was going to say that the wording is actually very very similar the story about the story of the man going on a long trip that has a lot less detail, right, right, and then there's also more application, just like you said vigilance, because he says it very I mean, look what that's like three different times, even in the middle of it he says, you know, he's in the middle of the story, and he says, you too, must keep watch. So he's actually like telling a story and applying it as he's telling it. Yeah, which is kind of cool. Yep, it's neat to see how Jesus teaches, Yes, right, Jesus as a So everyone smile, you and I we both because we speak a lot. Different Christians have different opinions about how they want the Bible taught. Oh yeah, I know Christians have opinions, which by the way, hey, by the way, listen, let's listen. I gotta throw this out. I got for this and this is so quick. I was watching Big Bang Theory. It's one of my favorite shows in all the world. And Sheldon caught his mom, you know, doing something, and he says, oh, you're such a hypocrite, right, And she says, Sheldon, I'm so sorry, you know. And he goes, well, and he has to find himself to forgive her, and he says, this is the funny part. He goes inside, I will continue to judge you and condemn you internally, but on the outside, he says, I will continue to extend to you love and acceptance. And then she says, well, thank you, Sheldon. That is very Christian of you. And I laughed so hard. I was like, oh, my goodness, it's so funny. It's really good. So but on occasion, you know, and it's because there's different thoughts with regard to preaching, and I was just looking at a program of preaching, particularly with regard to teaching, and I was looking at the idea of how do they teach preaching? Yeah, yeah, and you know, so there's the idea that what you should do is you start with the verse, and you start at the beginning of the passage. You read at the end of the passage, you expose it's expository preaching. You expose the meanings of all those words in order. Right, there's others that would be very applicational, and others that would be very doctrinal, So applicational meaning like Jesus here he's in the middle of teaching, and then he pauses, now, hey, you should be alert too, and then he goes on and keeps teaching the rest of the thing he's using an illustration. And then there's the highly doctrinal ones, the ones that are taking significant Biblical passages that are the foundational passages for major doctrines. And then you build the whole rest of the idea. Right, so those would be the three big ideas. What you find Jesus doing is regularly doing all three and oftentimes blending them into just one message. So he just recently we quoted at the very very beginning, we quoted Isaiah thirteen to ten, Isaiah thirty four to four, Joel two ten. He's using that as a foundational piece to say, hey, God's going to return. Now he's using those three verses. He crammed three verses into one one quote here, but he's using the scripture to say God's going to return and it's going to be in this time when the sun's dark and the moon doesn't give any light, starts to fall from heaven powers and heavens will be shaken. And he's talking about whoa, this is gonna be scary stuff. So there's the there's the Bible thing he's quoting there. Then he he gives an illustration look at the fig tree. And then he comes to the end because now you should be watching three times you keep watching, keep watching, keep watching. Right, So he does all three in the mess and it does a parable Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean you know it's a metaphorical story, right right, Yeah, And so yeah, I think about all those different methods, right just in these few verses. Right. So, so sometimes when we're teaching on a stage or even in a you know, classroom or whatever. H heck, even even at a coffee shop, you can you can use a visual aid, right, yeah, but to use a visual aid to illustrate something is something very common, or a word picture or a word picture to grab people's attention. And like, I remember one time when we talked about the glory of God and we talked about how the glory is uh uh you know, it's it's the it's the giving something weight. Yeah. Right. I put water up there and I dropped like a rock versus a feather, right, and talked about how God's word needs to carry weight in our lives and be a part of it, you know, versus floating on the surface with no weight at all. Wow. And it was it was really good. Yeah. And it's like we had the camera up there, real close whatever, and I had this older man, I mean older I'm talking about this guy looked like he had gone to church his entire life. He might be like you know, early nineties, late eighties, and he comes out into the lobby and he goes, I got to tell your son, he goes, that's the best illustration I've ever heard about glory and worship in my entire life. Wow. Yeah, right, that which carries a lot of weight. Right, Not to have a pun there, but I was just thinking, Wow, what a statement. Well, think about it. That's what Jesus did. Oftentimes he's like, look at that fig tree. He's like, do you see how it's blooming. He's like, in that same way, here's what that means. And in that way, here's how you know what I'm trying to say. So it's just interesting how, just like you said, all different teaching methods in one spot here in one spot. So what the highlights for me is we may have our preference how we like to hear it, but the reality is there's not a right way. And sometimes people will come off saying this is the only way. You should only preach from the beginning of a book of a Bible to the end of a book of a Bible. You should only preach from the beginning of a chapter or the end of the chapter, whatever, that's the only way to do it. Or the other side. Oh, you know, you get bogged down if you use too many verses. Here's what you need. You need a couple verses and then you're a verse and then just get to the point, right, use some illustrations and those kinds of things. And here Jesus is using three different passages right there. He uses the parable there with the fig tree, he uses this story about this man coming back, and application. He does them all. And so the main point for me for preaching is to get people from where they are to God. And the way you do that is by exposing what the word in the text say. Right, So Jesus is giving them some indication about what that is, and then he also then gives them application. So you're trying to get them from where they are to Jesus. That means that they have to be willing to open their heart and their minds, which means you got to capture their attention. Hey, it captures my attention. When he goes, the sun will be dark and the moon will have given no light, the stars will fall from the guy, and the powers I have and will be shaken. That's what's going to be like when I come back. Right, That gets my attention, right if you're looking at it. So he does that, but then he moves into an illustration, this parable idea, He tells us, a story, he gives solid application, and those things altogether. What he's wanting you to do, he's trying to move you. He's trying to move you to be ready. He's not trying to inform you. And where preaching sometimes falls down, our Bible teaching falls down is when it's just informative. But Jesus almost never was purely informative, right. Jesus always gives information for the purpose of moving you somewhere. He loves you just the way. I just had this conversation lady today about this. God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you so much he won't just leave you there. He's always moving you. There's a journey he's taking you on. And so even in this passage I think better than anything else we've seen so far recently, is he does all of those things together. Yeah, and think about this too. So an example would be like, okay, so he used the Old Testament, and you know what he's doing there. Oftentimes what we do is we take certain parts of the scriptures and we'll connect them to other parts of the scriptures, and we'll be like, look at what's happening in both of these scriptures. And there's a theme here, there's an observation, there's a truth. So Jesus what he's doing here is he's connecting some dots and he's doing Old Testament versus you know, current times and even future times, so that's connecting the dots. And then he does this thing with the fic tree. You know what, I would liken that to like insightful. Oh that's pretty insightful, right, I mean, I know you're not teaching anything new about the victory, but you're saying in the same way I should. Oh, okay, that's insightful. Helps me understand it. And then what he does is I thought about this just a minute ago. He actually says something that's brand new information. He says, let me tell you about when the second Company's gonna come. Nobody knows, not even us, not even me, not even the angels. Right. So what he's doing right there is he's telling somebody something brand new and they're learning something for the very first time. And oftentimes somebody measures a good sermon by saying I have to learn something, right, And sometimes I'll get a sermon and people are like, I didn't learn anything new. And then my next question, Vilie says, are you currently doing the thing that you already know? And then they say, uh no, And I'm like, within that sermon's for you, go back and work on that, go back and work on that. That's why I got to have me say it. Right, So there's something brand new, it's insightful. And by the way, I also agree that. I think that when something is brand new and insightful where you've never seen before, to me, that's the best kind of message to hear. Like you're like, man, I never thought about that, Or that's so powerful, that is so insightful. You know, it was right there the whole time, but I never saw it before. When you learn something new, that really is some of the best. You know. That's because the Word is so dynamic, right right, I mean, man, in life, you've been a Christian for how many years? I've been forty something years. I've been a Christian. Yeah, and I've read through the Bible so many times. But man, we have a conversation like this, how many times have we had the Oh my gosh, I never thought of that before, right, hey, I just saw that just now, just because God's Word is living. It's not a dead book, it's a living book. And so he says here, he says, I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass right. So we already read that. And then he said heaven and Earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear. Yeah, Heaven and earth will disappear. What does that mean? Yeah, yeah, well they will, right. So he tells us eventually there's going to be in a new heaven and a new Earth. He's going to make it all in all new, right, right, So this is all be destroyed someday, but God's word will never go away. At the time, can you even imagine what they thought? Like, were they thinking literal? Yeah? Yeah, right, yeah, well it is literal he is talking about. No, I know, I know it's literal, but I'm just saying, like when yeah, they're thinking, they're thinking what right? Yeah, it's it's pretty amazing. And and I would also say this. I would also say, because it's so applicable at the very end of Mark's passage, it's also a great reminder that I'm not sure that Jesus did anything without an application. He wasn't always clear. Sometimes he would say something and say, he who has ears to hear, let him hear, right. And he would also say that there are many people who aren't going to understand these things, sure, right, So in that case, he wasn't always you know, crystal clear with the application. But whenever he did decide to teach something that did have a crystal clear, you know, a crystal clear point, he was always clear to say, this is what that means. So I would just say this. One of the reasons why I, you know, decided to even become a pastor and a communicator is because I grew up going to church and it was so irrelevant. Now and lets say that differently, it was irrelevant to me, right, So like like like I didn't understanding to say, God's word is never irrelevant. Sometimes we don't understand the relation. And it's the communicator's job to make you understand the relevance and so and so to me, it was just like, I don't understand why we're doing this. I didn't learn a single thing, you know, I don't have any knowledge. I was never encouraged to read the book myself. It was just read to me and and and they would say things and I'm like, I don't even know why we even talked about that today, right, And then one day I wandered into a church and it was the church that changed my life. It's the church I ended up getting saved at and you know, becoming a Christian at when when they gave a message and I understood that it was useful, it was relevant, it was practical, it was applicable, and honestly it was it was going to help me as a person. And when I understood that, I thought, Wow, there's more to learn, and it's possible to teach something in a creative and fun and engaging way, but more importantly, it has application. So for me, that's why I become a pastor. It's powerful man, and that's why it's important to not just read the words, but to figure out how to apply the words. When we teach, it's not just about teaching facts, it's about figuring out how to apply them right to It's the responsibility of the preacher to take God's heavenly ideas and make them approachable by the listener. Right that that's our role. And so I'm just intrigued by jesus teaching style. And we would all learn a lot if we just pay attention to jesus preaching style instead of only listening to professions. Tell us what's the appropriate way to preach? Right? Hey, So I guess this last illustration that he closes with he says, the coming of the Son of Man will be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. I guess the long trip is from the time that Jesus ascends into heaven until he returned till he returns. Right, So everybody, everybody at first worried that he's going to come back. And you know what, does Matthew say that when we read yesterday? He says, and then he decides, oh, maybe he's not going to come back. He's not coming back for a while. So he decides to what he cuts loose. Right, that guy cuts loose, decides to do everything that's what's right in his own eyes. And then it says, and all of a sudden, boom baby, he comes back. The boom baby was in the Greek, original Greek, wasn't it? Well, I thought it was an emperor's new groove. Oh yeah, I didn't see it in the English translation. But it must have been in the original Greek. There's a little note here in the Life Appication Bible says boom baby, which is the Hebrew pronounced boom baby. All right, all right, I get it, I get it all right. Chris's emphasis for sure yeah, no, that's great all right. Well, hey, that looks like our time and we will see you next time, hopefully on the Bible. Guys,