Luke chapter 21 verses 5 through 38. While some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, he said, as for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be one stone left upon another which will not be torn down. They questioned him saying, teacher, when therefore will these things be? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place? And he said, see to it that you are not misled. For many will come in my name saying, I am he, and the time is near. Do not go after them. 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. Then he continued by saying to them, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places, plagues and famines, and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name's sake. It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourself. For I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends. And they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all because of my name. Yet not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance you will gain your lives. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city, because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. Woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to his people. And they will fall by the edge of the sword and will be led captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the armies of the Gentiles are fulfilled. I'm sorry, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Verse 25. There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars and on the earth dismay among nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves. Men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Verse 27, then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing nigh. And he told them a parable. Behold a fig tree. and all the trees. As soon as they put forth leaves, you see it and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Be on guard. so that your heart will not be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life. And that day will not come upon you suddenly like a trap, for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. Now, during the day he was teaching in the temple, but at evening he would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet. And all the people would get up early in the morning and come to him in the temple to listen to him. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the clarity of the gospel in the scripture. We pray for your guidance. We pray that you would keep us from error. We pray that today we would be rejoicing in Jesus Christ and the new covenant that we have in him through his blood. God, we do pray that your voice would be heard. that we would hear the voice of Christ, our Savior, as your word is preached and hide this preacher behind the cross, we ask in Jesus name. Amen. If you remember last week, just very quickly to recap, we talked about different people reading different passages in different ways. There's lots of places we could go to the scripture and we could see that people read it and interpret it and apply it in different ways. So that's not unique, but this is one particularly that some people walk away and say, well, we see here a secret rapture of the church. And we don't see that. If you read this with your eyes open, you don't see that. Some people do read this and see that the beginning part of this is certainly a prediction, a prophecy of what happened to Jerusalem and to the temple in 70 AD. But they also believe that later in the passage, particularly beginning in verse 27, you see the Son of Man coming, that that is speaking of the future coming of Jesus Christ. But if you'll remember, I took the position and believe that this entire passage is speaking of what happened in 70 AD, the destruction of the temple. And the Son of Man coming in verse 27 is not Jesus coming to rescue his people out of the world, but that it is Christ coming in power and in judgment. And we certainly see that. And we saw that in history. There's much that you could read outside of scripture, historical accounts about this thing. Particularly, you'll hear me refer to a man named Josephus. Josephus is a historian, and Josephus was a Jew. He was not a Christian. and would not have done anything to enhance or further the gospel of Jesus Christ on purpose. But what he writes down when we come to Scripture, we see his uninspired writings of a man. We see that the Scripture-inspired prophecy is fulfilled. And so we'll see some of that. We see this coming of Christ in these verses in judgment, in power, in this cloud of glory and power. We see this as historical from our standpoint, from where we stand. As Jesus spoke these words to his disciples, to those who would hear, it was future events. But today for us, these are historical events. So why do we spend so much time, why two sermons studying these historical events? Is it that important? And we see here that there is application for us today. There is application that we can see from this text. How are we to see these things? How are we to think about these things? And then there's application by way of types. Christ coming in judgment in 70 AD is a type, it is a shadow, it is a A first, not first, it is a thing that we see that should cause us to think by way of type about his second coming. Particularly, here's what I'm trying to say and stumbling over the words. God had said for, at this time, about 1600 years. that if Israel did not keep his covenant, keep his commands, obey his voice, that he would come against them in judgment. When God says he will judge sin, we can see here by way of type, but we can know the truth that God will judge sin. And this time it took from the first time that we see Israel breaking God's covenant, 1600 years, some were thinking, God's not gonna judge. Maybe he's okay with what's going on. You know, that happens today. Because it's been 2000 years since Jesus walked on the earth. He hasn't been back. He hasn't come yet. And some say, well, he's not coming. He's not going to judge sin. Maybe he's just OK with what's going on. Don't be deceived. God is not slow or slack concerning his promises. He will come and He will judge sin. So we see this by way of example. We also see in 70 AD that God saved His elect. They were used for His purpose and He protected them to the end that He had for them. And we can see that by way of type, that God, in the same stroke that punishes sin, can save His people. and use us for his purpose and for his glory and for our good. And we see that in this text. We began so very quickly. Let's look at verse five. We noted that they were walking through the temple and we remember we referred to Matthew and Mark that also tell this same story, this same historical account, the same prophecy. And this is called the Olivet Discourse. covered in Matthew and Mark and Luke. Our study will just be here for Luke, but we get more information. We find out that they were leaving the temple this day. As Jesus said these things, they're looking around, they're noticing the beauty and the size, the immensity of this temple and the The things that were covered in gold, most of these, and this was not a building, this was a complex of buildings. Someone described this as a small college campus kind of thing. That's how we would see it. This is buildings that are connected, and most of these buildings would have been covered in thin sheets of gold. So just think about the money that had gone into that. Remember, Herod had undertaken to remodel, but it was really a rebuilding. For that reason, some call this the second temple and it's being remodeled, but some have called it the third temple because it was almost a total reconstruction. What wasn't covered in gold was beautiful white marble. Remember those giant stones that were so large yet so particularly put together with such craftsmanship that they said you couldn't even put a piece of paper between these huge stones. Fitted together with that sort of precision, the votive gifts that are mentioned. People would give gifts. If they had a beautiful gold ornament or something that could be placed as decoration, then it would be placed. If they just had gold that wasn't fit for decoration, It could be melted down, hammered out, fashioned into additions to the votive gifts. Herod himself had donated, out of his own treasury, the figure of a gold grapevine. a gold grapevine and this was so ornate and so large that the clusters of grapes were the size of a man. And as people donated gold, that gold would be melted and fashioned into more grapevine and more grapes. And this was not only a grapevine, but it was a growing grapevine. How beautiful. And these disciples point this out to Jesus as they're walking through this. How beautiful. But Jesus is not impressed with this outward opulence. Jesus is not impressed. He looks at what's going on on the inside and he says this temple will be destroyed. Not one stone left on another. It's that kind of destruction. We've seen destructions where we say, I remember a time that Stacey and I traveled to, I can't remember what country it is. We stayed in a hotel. We were on the third floor, but every floor from the third floor up, or from the fourth floor up, had been bombed out. So it was a unique experience for this Louisiana boy. But the building was still there. You could see that. Jesus says, this temple is going to be destroyed in such a way that there won't be a stone on top of another. This is a thorough wrecking of this temple. Remember, he says, see to it that you're not misled. He's speaking to the disciples here. We certainly, if they needed to see to it that they're not misled by false teachers, by false doctrines, we certainly need to see that we are not misled. He says, many will come in my name. They will say, I am he. And many did. Josephus tells us. Other historians give us accounts of those who came to say, you know that Messiah you're looking for? You know that political leader that you're looking for? I am the one. And those who were so interested in finding a political leader, those who rejected Jesus Christ because he was not what fit their idea, many of them went after these and believed what they said. The time is near. Now we will take over. We will run the Romans out. Many of these groups formed into factions that argued and fought against one another. And we'll see that later here. He says in verse 10 that nation will rise against nation. This is wars. And we see particularly here, Rome coming to put down this rebellious Jerusalem. And initially Titus, the Roman general, was not going to destroy the temple. It's so beautiful. It's so opulent, why would you destroy that? We can use that, we can take that. But because of these factions within that were arguing against one another, kingdom against kingdom, he was unable to get a negotiated surrender and wound up destroying the whole place. Natural disasters came, famines, plagues. If you'll remember Pompeii, things were happening all around that were not their norm, that were outside of their normal understanding. As Jesus says here, this temple will be destroyed, we see a change. If you'll remember back in chapter 21, which was not so long ago in our study, that Jesus had come in and cleansed the temple. This was a second cleansing. He came in and cleansed the temple at the beginning of his ministry. And he came in now at the end of his ministry with another cleansing to say, this is not right. to put things straight. He said when he came in the second cleansing of the temple found in Matthew 21, he said, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. My house, my father's house. That's what he's speaking of. But then in this Olivet Discourse, when he says this place will be destroyed in Matthew 23, we read this, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. You kill the prophets, you stone those who are sent to you. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Listen to this. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. See, something's changed. My house, my father's house, but something's changed here. Your house is left to you desolate. You've taken this and you've turned it into something that it should not be and this is your house left to you desolate. Verse 12, Jesus tells the disciples those things, before those things come, you will be handed over to persecution. You will see a time of persecution. When we talk about types, I'm afraid this is a type. that we see they endured persecution, and you will too. And let me say this, there's a certain level, and I'm gonna use the term persecution, there's a certain level of persecution that all Christians of all times have seen. If somebody makes fun of you for being a follower of Jesus Christ, that's common. That's common to the world. One of the promises that we rarely hear quoted and held to is when Jesus says, they hated me and they will hate you also. But this persecution that Jesus speaks of here is not just a common, they were annoyed. They had an inconvenience. It wasn't that kind of persecution. They will lay their hands on you. They will deliver you to the synagogues, which was a place that they would hold court, and then to prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name's sake. You can think of those who we read of in the book of Acts, who were brought to the synagogue. Remember Peter? in Peter and John in Acts chapter four, as they have been teaching in the name of Jesus, as they have healed in the name of Jesus, and they were brought to the synagogue and they were told, you can no longer teach in that name. No longer teach by that name. Verse 14 says this, so prepare, make up your minds not to prepare, make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourself. And we see almost miraculously in Acts chapter 4 where Peter speaks, where Peter preaches a sermon without having a New Testament before him. Where Peter preaches a sermon, and what is that other than, I will give you utterance. and I will give you wisdom for which none of your opponents can refute or resist." When they brought Peter and John in and they said, you cannot preach in that name, and Peter preaches this message to them, you judge whether it is right to obey man or to obey God. And if I can tell you, paraphrasing kind of what happened, they went, well, then get out of here. They turn them loose. But how are they going to refute? How are they going to resist that? And by the way, verse 14, make up your minds not to prepare beforehand. Some have taken this and completely taken it out of the context that it is written in and completely taken it away from what Jesus intended here. And they have said, we should never prepare to say anything. We should always just go off the cuff, fly by the seat of your pants. And that's why you will see sometimes preachers step to the pulpit and go, let's see, how about Proverbs 29. That is not an obedience to this verse. That is foolishness. It is. There are times when we can't prepare. There are times by God's providence when something comes up and And not often, I think once, I had to preach in that sort of way. But Pastor Brent had that also. No preparation time. Like, you've got to preach. And in those times, God gives grace. Aren't we glad? But for us as preachers, as Sunday school teachers, as we deal with our children, for every one of us to say, I'm not going to know the word of God I'm not going to prepare in the things that I'm going to say. That's foolishness. This persecution is coming. How awful is that? Don't we want to end persecution? Let's just put a stop to it. All persecution, but look at verse 13. It will lead to an opportunity for the gospel. It will lead to an opportunity for your testifying. It will lead for an opportunity for you to speak the truth of Jesus Christ. Boy, shouldn't that change the way we pray, Christians? I don't want any persecution. I don't want that. God, get it off of me fast. But wait, if it'll lead to the gospel being proclaimed, if it'll lead to a testimony, am I willing to say, God, you know what I can handle it. You won't put something on me that I can't endure. I'm willing. They went before kings and governors. Their testimony was the outcome. of these difficult, difficult days. Verse 16, remember, we're looking at this as types of things that are yet to come. These things are historical for us, but there is types and they're teaching us for the things of the future. You will be betrayed by parents and brothers and relatives and friends. Some of you know what that is like. Some of you know that you can have a nominal Christianity that you can have that nice go along and get along Christianity and everything's fine. But when you get serious about serving Christ, when you get serious about obeying his word, some of you know what it is to be abandoned by those who you thought were your friends, by those who you thought were your closest relatives. We haven't seen this but they did and we may come to this day. They will put some of you to death. This may be coming. This is very interesting and this should help us in how we read scripture. Look at verse 18, yet not a hair of your head will perish. Not a hair of your head will perish. But verse 16, they will put some of you to death. but not a hair of your head will perish. Well, I would remind you of this. First of all, none of these people are alive today. So they died. I mean, all of them died. So not a hair of your head will perish. He's not saying here, you're never going to die an earthly death. Certainly. Those Christians had eternal life, and by your endurance, you will gain your lives. There's something there that speaks to their salvation and their endurance in Christ. But not a hair of your head will perish. Some of you will be put to death. How is that? Well, here's the deal. You are created for God's glory. You're created for God's purpose. And you will not, Christian, you will not die one day early. Until it is the day that God is done with your earthly work, you're invincible. Until it is that day, not one hair of your head will be, will perish. These people that Jesus spoke to, these disciples, they served the purpose that God had for them. And the disciples, the 12, minus Judas plus Paul, all perished, martyrs' deaths, save John. Some died, some were beheaded, but this is a promise. You will accomplish God's purpose for you. You will fulfill what God has for you and you will have this eternal preservation. You will be eternally preserved. We have that. Verse 20. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, this is hard to read. Then recognize that her desolation is near. And then he gives them this. Those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. You need to get out of town. You need to go. Jerusalem's surrounded. You need to run. Someone described this as what we might say today. You need to have a bug out bag. You need to get your stuff together so you can travel lightly. You need to be ready, and that's what's here. You who are in Judea are gonna flee the mountains. Those who are in the city must leave. Those who are in the country don't come to the city. I mean, that's exactly what we have here. God's vengeance is coming so that all these things will be fulfilled. Those who are pregnant, those who are nursing, it doesn't say that you're gonna get, you won't get out, but it's gonna be difficult. Maybe playing a little extra. It's just going to be tough. It is interesting that we see when Jerusalem was attacked by Titus in 70. Josephus tells us this. That the Christians left. They listened to what Jesus said and they left. We don't know and that now we can't say definitively, but we don't know of any Christians who died. But we do know this, the Jews ran into their city, ran into their place of comfort, ran into their place of security. And 1.1 million Jews were killed. So many that Josephus tells us they ran out of trees to build crosses to crucify them on. This is a massacre. I'm going to just refer very quickly to Matthew because I want to bring this verse in. Matthew 24 10 says this, in this same time period, at this time, many will fall away and will betray one another and will hate one another. Not Christians, but many will follow. Those who are Christians in name only will fall away. What we have here is they will fall away and they will hate one another. One commentator called this lawlessness and lovelessness. They will fall away, lawlessness, and they will hate one another, lovelessness. And I just wanted to bring that out to see. That's what happened here in this time of persecuting the Jews. And this is natural for men. And I also just want to say this, where there is no law, there is no love. Sometimes in exercise, this is an aside, sometimes in exercise, define love. How do you love? What does that look like? And here's what you're going to find. In order to say love looks like this, you have to start describing some actions. or some things that you do or some things that you don't do. Let me just give you a hint as to what I'm getting at here. How do you love one another? Well, one way you can love one another is honor authority. I mean, I could say it like this. Honor father and mother. which serves as an example of giving the proper due to all authority. I can say this, here's how you love one another. Don't kill. If I'm gonna expand that a little further with the help of Jesus Christ, don't kill and don't hate. How do you love one another? Well, don't commit adultery. Don't commit fornication. How do we love one another? What does it look like? Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't covet. You see where I'm getting at here? The law shows us how to love. Here they had lawlessness and lovelessness. Verse 22, because these are the days of vengeance. Great distress will be brought on the land and wrath to the people. That's the end of verse 23. Wrath to the people. This is the reasons for the destruction of Jerusalem. The reasons for the destruction of the temple. They had killed the prophets. They had stoned those that were sent to them. We read that from the Matthew account. They had rejected the Messiah. The crimes that that again, as Jesus is saying these things, it would have been in their very near future in the in this week. It would have been in the very near future, but their crimes against Jesus. Their crimes against the followers of Jesus. Bringing false witnesses in. Crucifixion of Christ. The reason for this destruction is God's vengeance. He goes on in verse 25 and following to speak of comets and meteor activity, things in the sky that would be seen. And it is very interesting that Josephus, once again, not the scripture, Josephus tells of all this activity in the heavens that could be seen. And one thing that he says is, a star, a heavenly body. Once again, I'm going to use the word exploded. That may not be the right word. Something happened, and it took the shape, took the form that Josephus describes as a sword that could be seen over the temple. That's not the Word of God, but it makes me do just what you just did. Verse 28, but when these things begin to take place, what do you do? Freak out. You got to get hysterical. Straighten up. Lift up your heads, because your redemption draweth not. In these things, keep an eternal perspective. I have five quick things. Five quick things to go through. How do we view this? What are we to do with this? First, and we talked about this last week, 21-18, Luke 21-18, don't be misled. Inoculate against error. Know doctrine. Know the scripture. Do that. It was for them to do then, and it's good for you to do now. Verse 9, do not be terrified. Do not be terrified. See that? Don't be terrified. Now, some have said, don't be fearful. And it's a different word. It's a different word. Because here's the deal. Anybody that sees all these things happening and there's no fear, something's wrong. Something's wrong. But this word terrified, this is that crippling terror. And don't do that. Why? Because you know what Jesus has said. Those who fled the city when they saw these things happening and their lives were saved, they probably had some level of fear, but they weren't in terror. Normal fear, that's one thing. Crippling fear indicates a lack of faith. Trust in Christ. Inoculate against fear. Know the promises of God. Not a single hair of your head will be harmed till God's through with you. And then what, Christian? Heaven. The worst they can do is kill the body. That's the worst they can do. You gotta be with Jesus. Don't be misled. Don't be terrified, verse nine. Verse 34, don't feed the flesh. Don't be overtaken with, and now my translation says dissipation. Don't be overtaken with dissipation. This is overindulgence. Fill in your favorite brand of overindulgence here. Don't be weighed down with dissipation, overindulgence, with drunkenness, and with the worries of life. Well, that's a word for us today, isn't it? We live in a world where dissipation, overindulgence, it rules the day. It rules the day not out there. It rules the day oftentimes, Christians and us. Don't be weighed down with dissipation, with drunkenness, with the worries of the world. Don't feed the flesh. Be holy. Now that doesn't mean that you can never have, God has given us wonderful blessings of life to enjoy. It doesn't mean that we never enjoy anything, but understand that there's overindulgence. Verse 36, be on the alert. Be on the alert. Don't pretend this world is a playground. It's a battlefield. We use the term in some of our church documents, and it's a King James word, to walk circumspectly. What would you say in the military? Keep your head on a swivel. You need to be on the alert. You need to be on the alert. Be on the alert. Also in this same, I believe it's in that same verse. Yes, pray for strength. Verse 36, keep on the alert at all times, praying that you will have the strength to escape these things. So what do we do? Don't be misled. Don't be terrified. Don't feed the flesh. Be on the alert and pray for strength. And then I have one last thing. And I'll try my best not to spend a lot of time here, but this if you don't get anything else out of what's said today, hear this. Rejoice in the destruction of the temple. Rejoice in the destruction of the temple. Why? How do we see the destruction of a building? How do we see the destruction of a beautiful building? Some of you really remember when the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center in New York City fell. We weren't rejoicing. Some may have been rejoicing. We were not rejoicing. But remember, When the wall came down, the Berlin Wall, I was a senior in high school. Remember the rejoicing, because that Berlin Wall stood for something. It represented something. And what it represented was dying, and people were rejoicing. I would call you today to rejoice in the destruction of the temple. I have two quick examples of of how God has condescended. He has stooped down to deal with man and he stoops down to deal with man by way of covenant. And we see this first in Genesis where God creates Adam, places him in the garden and says, you got free reign here. Eat of anything you want to eat in here except one tree. Don't eat of that tree. For the day you eat of it, you will surely die. That was a covenant. Adam had this freedom to eat of anything he wanted to. Just stay away from that thing. And what Adam enjoyed as the benefit, the privilege of this covenant was life. Day by day by day, life. and happiness and fulfillment. But the day that you eat of it, you will die. What does that mean? This covenant is conditional and it's conditioned on Adam's obedience. And what happened? This condition that depended on Adam, Adam failed. The day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Adam died, the term there is died dying. He died, he continued to die until the day he was dead. He died spiritually that moment. And so did all of mankind with him because he sinned as a representative of all of mankind. That covenant was based on Adam's faithfulness and that covenant failed. God comes back, and we're gonna jump to Exodus 19. You don't have to turn there. No, you need to turn there. Exodus 19. The reason I want you to turn there is because I'm afraid that you will say, oh, that's not what it says. I want you to see it. That writing is tiny. Exodus 19, I'm gonna read this. Then you will be my own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you will speak to the sons of... Many people read this, and that's all they read, that's all they remember. Israel, this is who you're gonna be. This is national Israel, and you're gonna be my people. But look at the beginning of verse five. Now, then Pastor Brent, if right, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, this is a covenant that God made with national Israel. And he said, if, if you will keep my commandments, if you will keep my covenant, if you will do, and by the way, this is 19. If you will keep my covenant in chapter 20, The Lord God spoke and he said, I am the Lord your God. No other gods before me. No graven images. My name is to be holy. He gives them the 10 commandments in 20. And we don't get very far in these verses until we see a golden calf. If you will keep my commandments, you will be my people forever. But it's dependent on you. It's dependent on your faithfulness to this covenant. And they didn't, the words were still ringing in the air when they broke this. You see why I said 1,600 years later, some were saying, God's not done. He could have. He had been patient. He had been merciful. He had been gracious. He had brought minor judgments to bring them back, to teach them lessons. They never learned, they never learned, they never learned. And in 70 AD, they were destroyed. So what I'm saying here is what we see as the nation of Israel today in 2020 is not this people, where God's covenant was with them. Because this covenant that he made with them is if you will keep my covenant, if you will keep my commandments, if you will obey my voice, if you will obey my words, and they didn't, and he destroyed them. And this new, no, man, I almost messed that up bad by calling this a new covenant. This covenant that God made with him that we would call an old covenant had all these things attached to it. Animal sacrifice, many different sacrifices reminding the people day after day, year after year that they were sinful and that the sacrifice of last year really didn't take their sin away. You got to do it again. And this one's not really going to take your sin away. It's going to be sacrifices offered in that temple every single day, every day, every day. There were no chairs in the temple where the priests offered the sacrifice. There's no chairs. Because there was never a time to sit down. There's no break time when you're a priest offering sacrifices for sin. There's never a break. No time to sit down. Constant work. The destruction of the temple marked an end to that old covenant, marked an end to that old way, marked an end to that sacrificial system. And now we have a new covenant established in the blood of Jesus Christ. From Romans 5, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our faithfulness. I know you're not turned there, but somebody think. Now having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our good stuff that we can do? Through our keeping away from sin? We have peace with God through our faithfulness to this covenant? No, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. This new covenant is not based on Adam's faithfulness. It's not based on Israel's faithfulness. This new covenant is based on Jesus Christ's faithfulness. His life, His death, it's based on Him. Adam messed things up, was no surprise to God, but Adam failed in that covenant. Israel failed in their covenant. Everywhere we see a covenant that is dependent on a man, it fails until God takes on flesh and becomes a man to be our brother in humanity and fulfill this covenant for us. Christians rejoice in the destruction of this beautiful as it was, this temple that represented something that is gone. Praise be to God, that is gone. Our hope is not in some place that we can go, some temple, some animal sacrifice. Our hope is in the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ. So don't be misled. Don't be terrified. Don't feed the flesh. Be on the alert. Pray for strength. And while we're doing all those things, rejoice in the destruction of the temple, the end of that old covenant, the things that we're not reading today. Hebrews 10. There's just verses I just want to add to keep reading about this new covenant that we have in Christ. Let's do this. We won't read that now, but let's talk about it every Lord's Day and every day from here on out. We have such a better covenant. We have a better priest. We have better promises. Father. What you have done. What you have done to save us. God, who you have saved. We are wretches. We were filth and enemies who hated you. And you have come to us with this new covenant in Christ to save us? so that we are no longer enemies, so that we are no longer trash, but we are sons. God, we stand in awe. It leaves us looking at your grace and being at a loss for words, so we call it amazing. God, forgive us. Where we have taken a passage of scripture like this and we have tried to figure out what political figure is going to be the new Antichrist, where we have tried to figure out what war has popped up that's going to be the beginning of the end. Forgive us where we have tried to come into your secret knowledge and know your stuff. God, help us to see that you have given us Types that you've given us shadows that you have given us your word that we would know how to live and how to anticipate. With longing. You're coming. We pray for strength. Show us how to be on the alert. Keep us from sin. But we rejoice. In the destruction of that old way. represented in that temple. We rejoice that we can stand before you as your Israel. We thank you for these things. Give you all the praise and glory for it. Amen.