If you'll turn with me now in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 21. Please stand with me now for the reading of God's Word. Let us pray. But God, we humbly now ask for the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit, without which we cannot understand the Word of God aright, not that its meaning is not plain, but that we acknowledge, Lord, our own sinful hearts are hostile to its truth. So we pray, Lord, that you would overcome that hostility, that we might this morning be partakers of your light. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Returning this morning to the Olivet Discourse, Luke chapter 21. Our sermon text today is Luke 21, verses 25 through 33. Hear now the word of our God. Jesus says, and there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, and on the earth, distress of nations. perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth. The powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now, when these things begin to happen, look up. and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near. Then he spoke to them a parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they're already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. Surely I say to you, This generation will by no means pass away till all things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. So I want to start this morning with an acknowledgment, which perhaps I should have made earlier. We first began our study of the Olivet Discourse, and that is this, that when it comes to eschatology, I am an amillennialist. And so my interpretation of the Olivet Discourse in this sermon series is from the Amillennialist perspective, which is not the only perspective that there is. As Amillennialists go, I tend to be pretty optimistic about the prospects of Christianity in coming days, which is why I've always gotten along well with Postmillennialists, and on occasion, even been accused of being one. But the truth is I'm not a post-millennialist. I am an amillennialist. Post-millennialists are not heretics. And they may be somebody's enemies. They're certainly not mine. Jonathan Edwards was an amillennialist. R.C. Sproul, I mean a post-millennialist. R.C. Sproul. was a post-millennialist. I could name many other respected theologians and also many friends in the Reformed Church who were post-millennialists. These are smart people and sincere Christians, sincerely trying to make better sense of the Bible's notoriously difficult passages on the end times. And theirs is a theory definitely worth considering, and I have considered it, most intensively upon reading a book by Keith Matheson entitled Postmillennialism, an Eschatology of Hope. But in the final analysis, while I appreciate the ingenuity and especially the optimism of the postmillennial perspective, and part of me hopes they turn out to be right after all, Still, the arguments for the post-millennial theory of eschatology have left me not unimpressed, just unconvinced. And that means that since it is I who am now leading us in the interpretation of the Olivet Discourse, we'll be proceeding on the basis of an amillennial assumption. which is this, that as Jesus Christ stands here in Luke 21, 25 through 33, on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem, he is ultimately speaking not of things that happened long ago, but of things that are still to happen and will happen as the world approaches its destined end. And what will happen in those days? Here in verses 25 through 28, we hear from Jesus these two things. First, as Christ's return approaches, the world will grow dreadfully dark. And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, Jesus says there. And on the earth, distress of nations with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. So you'll notice here, perhaps, as I do, a shift at this point in the Olivet Discourse from a more specific to a less specific description of what is coming. The Lord was fairly specific in verses 5-19 as he described false Christs and humanitarian crises and persecutions that would characterize the coming age of the Gospel. He was also quite specific in verses 20-24 in predicting the siege, the suffering, and the ultimate fall of the city of Jerusalem at the commencement of that age in the year 70 AD. But as he now seemingly looks beyond these events, Jesus becomes a bit vague about what he sees, so that rather than providing us with the material to construct a detailed picture of the last days, we are left instead with a mere sense, a feeling, of what the world will be like as its end approaches. And on the basis of Christ's words here, I think we can all agree that sense is unmistakably dark and foreboding. For first, Jesus speaks in verses 25 through 26 of coming astronomical signs indicative of cataclysmic times. Signs in the sun, in the moon, in the star, These are the great lights in the heavens which God created, gave to us on the fourth day of his creative work, to be for signs and seasons and for days and years, to rule the day and the night, as it says in Genesis 1.14. All these now ancient lights of God's common grace that have so long illuminated our fallen world shall undergo some sort of visible change in the skies in those days, so that it shall seem from our perspective on earth that the very powers of the heavens are shaken, almost as though the lights are going out on our world. It's not the first mention of this in the Bible. The prophet Isaiah foresaw this, said in Isaiah 13, nine and 10, Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and he will destroy sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will punish the world for its evil, says the Lord, and the wicked for their iniquity. Jesus says much the same thing in Matthew's account of the Olivet Discourse, chapter 24, verse 29, where he says, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. So, whatever this is, it will be, it seems, an unmistakable sign of God's great displeasure with our world and the wickedness in it. When after so long a time, he begins to withdraw these heavenly lights that have given us their light. And the world and all its inhabitants are as a consequence plunged helplessly into darkness. Then secondly, Jesus goes on in the same verses to speak of a state of panicked chaos among the earth's inhabitants. With the lights out in the heavens, there should be great darkness in the earth, and the distress of nations shall ensue, the Lord says, with perplexity. The Greek word there is aporia, also translated anxiety or doubt. So I picture a sort of confounded hand wringing in the dark like the Egyptians, perhaps in the ninth plague. And at that time, the sea and the waves, Jesus says, will be roaring or making a confused sound. The sea is an interesting symbol in the ancient world. It's symbolized. It's not hard to understand why. Chaos. for its mysterious and powerful depths had brought down many ships and panicked seamen when suddenly the sea is aroused in a storm. In the Bible, the same symbol of the tumultuous sea is used of the peoples of the earth, the tendency of the nations to rise up suddenly and clash violently as in our world wars. In such dark times, Jesus says that men's hearts will faint fail them from fear. Fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth. So again, while the details are sparse, the unmistakable sense here is that something terrible is coming. What Isaiah called, you heard, the day of the Lord. And people will feel it. As God's final wrath against sinners and against to shake the heavens, and throw the earth into a state of panicked chaos as its end approaches, and approaches fast. Now you may say to me, Pastor, I thought you said you were optimistic about the end time. No, what I said was, I don't like to be misquoted by the way, what I said was I was optimistic about Christianity's prospects in coming days, that's what I said. I'm optimistic about the mustard seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and its power throughout the age of the gospel to reach the scattered multitudes of God's elect everywhere in the world, to bring them out of the world and unto Christ even to the end of the world. And so I'm also optimistic about the preservation and the perseverance of the church of Jesus Christ in the world, in spite of its many enemies in the world. And I'm confident of the ultimate success of her gracious gospel mission, knowing that the spirit of Christ is with us and she'll never leave or forsake us. So as an optimistic millennialist, I'm optimistic about all that. But my optimism about those things does not preclude the possibility of a painful crisis near the world's end. It will be truly dark and dreadful for everyone living in the world in those days, including Christ's disciples. The Apostle Paul seems to speak of just such a crisis in 2 Thessalonians 2, a passage describing what is sometimes called the great apostasy. Paul there assures the Christians in Thessalonica that before the second coming of Christ, the apostasy, or the falling away, must happen first. The man of lawlessness, or the Antichrist, be revealed to the world according, Paul says, to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and he will deceive many. Likewise, Paul again, in pinning his second letter to Timothy, chapter three, seems to describe the same crisis as he issues this warning to Timothy. He says, but know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of themselves lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. So that's the spirit of the great apostasy. And so of the world in those days when the lights go out and fear rises and the cult of the Antichrist is on the march and chaos seems to reign everywhere. Our millennialists see the same crisis of the last days depicted in the book of Revelation again and again as as the book of Revelation cycles through the coming age of the gospel, each series of visions culminating in a similar climactic crisis before what appears to be the end. For instance, listen to what John describes seeing as the Lamb, that's Jesus, breaks the sixth of the seventh seals in Revelation 6, 12. So the last one before the final one, the sixth of the seventh seals. He says, there I looked, and when he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able to stand? In retrospect, we might see a similar crisis forecast in the story of Israel's exodus from Egypt in the Old Testament. When after the Passover, you remember, and after the plague of the firstborn, and after Israel's plundering of the Egyptians, an enraged Pharaoh rises up, makes one final push, and with his terrible army bearing down hard upon the fleeing Israelites, he drives the persecuted people of God to the Red Sea so that their backs are against the wall. Surely that was Israel's darkest hour in the story of the Exodus. All hope was seemingly gone then, and they said as much to their shame, and cried out, Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in this wilderness? That's despair, isn't it? And yet it's at precisely that fearful moment of crisis that the light of God's salvation just broke out on the scene as Moses, mediator of God's covenant, stood forth with staff in hand and by an almighty power made a path for the Israelites through the sea. And so it was that the Israelites ran to freedom and rejoiced on its distant shores while their enemies all drowned, dismayed, and defeated in the wake of God's mighty deliverance on that day. That's the story, right? So it's with that story in mind that I'd have us now look at what Jesus says next in verses 27 and 28 of the Olivet Discourse. For secondly, it is when the world has grown so dreadfully dark that the light of our Redeemer shall suddenly appear. Then, Jesus says in verse 27, they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now, when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near. So the Son of Man, in verse 27, is Jesus himself. This, as you know, is the Lord's preferred way of referring to himself throughout the gospels. And especially here, the title Son of Man appears to be a reference to Daniel 7.13, and the words of the prophet Daniel, who said that, I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed. So according to the vision of Daniel, son of man is a royal title, that of the king of the kingdom of heaven. the one whom God loves, the one whom God chooses to reign, and to whom he gives the right of universal and everlasting dominion. And that is Jesus Christ, God's own son. He is the son of man. So what Jesus is telling us here in verse 27 is that in the world's darkest hour, when the lights go out, Satan is released to make one final enraged push, and the rising cold of the Antichrist deceives many in the world. And there's a great falling away, and men's hearts grow cold, and lawlessness abounds everywhere, and fear and chaos seem to have won. But the churning sea and the waves are roaring in the background, and our backs, Christians, are against the wall. That is when the church should do what? Look up and see what? See whom? Suddenly she shall look up and see the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have believed, coming on the clouds of heaven, coming to the church's rescue at last. Like lightning flashing from one end of heaven to another shall his appearing be, with a blast of a trumpet, and his angels pour forth from the sky with sickles in hand, and the oft-promised day of the Lord, the day of God's wrath upon the wicked, and the day of the devil's much-deserved demise dawns upon this our apostate world. And to the eyes of Christ's disciples living in those days, the appearing of Jesus in great power and glory shall be, as he says here, the realization that their redemption is nigh. Like that moment when Moses parted the Red Sea, our darkest hour shall be the very hour of our greatest deliverance. For say what you will about our God, Christians, he has an impeccable sense of drama. No one understands how to write drama into a story like the God of the Exodus and the God of the Cross, the glorious God of the end of the world. Now it's at this point in the Olivet Discourse that Jesus tells his disciples a parable. A short one, so let me read that again in verses 29 through 31. Then he spoke a parable to them. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they're already budding, you see and know for yourself that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. So there's a great principle of Christian eschatology here, and for that matter, of Christian life, and I don't want you to miss it. It's wonderful, and it's important, and here it is. When things look darkest in this world, the Christian's hope burns brightest. Why? Because he knows. He knows that's precisely when Jesus is nearest. I'll say it again. When things look darkest in this world, that's when our hope as Christians burns brightest. This is counterintuitive. Common sense does not lead to this conclusion. And so others, guided by nothing more than intuition and common sense, will conclude that when things are darkest in the world and for the Church, then surely her faith is in vain and her hopes are lost. But the words of our Lord teach us to draw the very opposite conclusion as a people of Christian faith, and the applications of that are manifold. For instance, when you come to a place in your life where you and your sins, your own sinfulness is the worst in your own eyes, and you are most wretched and least worthy of God's love in your own estimation, then I say look up. For that is precisely the moment when the light of the gospel is most likely to break out upon you and saving power that you should understand and receive God's love for you in Jesus Christ and know that he has come to save you from your sin. Oh, when you come at last in life to the hour of your death and the doctors can do no more for you and the approaching darkness of the final enemy is all around you and about to overwhelm you and drag your body down into the grave, then look up. For that is precisely the moment, Christians, when your soul is nearest to seeing heaven and knowing its true freedom and its happiness in beholding the Son of God, your Savior, face to face. And as for eschatology, likewise. When the great crisis comes and the world is at its chaotic worst and same things seem darkest in the days of the Antichrist, and the church's hopes seem most surely to be dashed. In what? That is the sign, Jesus says, in answer to his disciples' initial question in verse 7. That is the sign that your redemption draws nigh. That is the hour to be hopeful, you most hopeful Christian, seeing all those fearful signs as what? budding of a cosmic fig tree, and know that the summer of your highest gospel aspirations is at hand, and all things are about to be fulfilled. And so Jesus says to his disciples in verse 28, when you see all these things happening, then look up, lift up your heads. I mean, what a point of practical application that is. Don't look around at the chaos with fear. Don't look down at the ground in dismay. Don't bury your face in the darkness and with confounded hand wringing, let yourselves be overwhelmed by the terrible roaring of the tumultuous sea. But rather, Jesus says to his disciples, look up. Then should your Christian hope burn its brightest. Look, look towards the skies, knowing what these times are for the oft promised long awaited appearing of the Son of Man in great power and glory is come and know that his kingdom is near. Now, there are two more lines here that we need to address before we're done. And the first is verse 32, in which Jesus says, Surely I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place. Now this is a line with which post-millennialists beat our millennialists over the head to great effect. For it is admittedly the most difficult line to explain from the Amillennial's perspective. So the Postmillennialists are like Martin Luther at the Marburg Colloquy, banging their fists on the table, saying the words of Jesus, this is my body. So our Postmillennial friends point to Jesus' words in verse 32 and say, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place. What does that mean? Well, how does the amillennialist answer this admittedly strong objection to our theory? Well, if you know us, you should be able to guess. We invoke one of our favorite principles of biblical interpretation concerning the promises of God, and that is what we call the already-not-yet principle. For instance, When will God save us from our sins? Christians, in a sense, an important and wonderful sense, He already has. Jesus Christ has already come, the Savior of sinners, and paid the price for our sins in full. And we, hearing of and believing in Jesus, have already, by God's grace, been forgiven our sins. And furthermore, upon receiving the Holy Spirit as Christians, there has been a definitive break with the power of sin so that we are no longer its slaves. All that is true now. So the answer is that God has already saved us from our sin. And yet, we still sin, right? There's still sin in us, and we sin every day and feel guilty about that. And there's sin all around us in this world, and we have to deal with the misery of sin and struggle against sin all the time, even as Christians. Sin is still present and a grief to us still. Shall it ever be otherwise? It shall. When? When Jesus Christ comes again. At the end of the world, the full and final realization of our salvation from sin is reserved for that His day. So if the question is asked, when does God in Christ save us from our sins, the biblical answer is both, He already has, and He has not yet. And that's the already not yet principle. Here's another example of the same principle concerning the resurrection of the dead. Christians, has God raised us from the dead? According to the Bible, in one important sense, the gospel answer is, yes, he already has. We were once dead in trespasses and sins, were we not? But thanks be to God, by virtue of Christ's resurrection from the dead, we have been born again of the Holy Spirit, and now live to God as those who have been raised from the dead. That's what our baptism signifies. So it's already happened, and yet, as for our bodies, well, they're not yet resurrected from their graves, but shall lie under the power of death until when? Until Jesus Christ returns at the end of the world, and then, At the blast of the final trumpet shall the dead in Christ arise, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4 16. Followed by those who are alive and remain in that generation to be caught up together with them in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air. So there again you see the principle of the already not yet at work in the proper understanding of God's promises in scripture. So as for Christ's words in verse 32. Did the generation of Christ's disciples in the first century see all these things that Jesus here describes in the Olivet Discourse in the days leading up to the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD? The Amillennialist answers, yes. That generation did see all these things. And no one has explained that better than the Postmillennialists. And yet. Such an acknowledgement does not preclude the possibility, and I would say even the probability, that Jesus here, in a manner in which his disciples may not have understood at the time, also foresaw and spoke of another generation of his disciples still to come, the one living at the world's end, who would also see in their lifetimes the greater and more ultimate fulfillment of these words. says the Amillennialist. There it is again. The biblical tension in God's promises to his people of the already, not yet. So we conclude with the final line in verse 33, in which Jesus Christ declares, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. And whether you're an all-millennialist or a post-millennialist or a pre-millennialist or whatever, if you get this point, then you've got something of real power in your Christian eschatology. When you understand and believe that the words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are more ultimate than the heavens and the earth, And it is the fulfillment of those words that is your ultimate hope. Then even if the heavens and the earth are shaken as the world is thrown into a state of chaos and the stars start falling from the sky, then your hope, Christian, is still very much alive. And that is how we of all people shall be, as Paul said to the Ephesians, strong in the Lord. and in the power of his might, and able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. That is how our faith, as John said, to the persecuted church of the first century, shall overcome the world. And we should be faithful unto death, and receive from Christ himself the crown of life. People who do not believe in Jesus Christ still like to use the language of hope and encourage themselves to be optimistic and not lose hope. But such an idea of hope is not grounded in anything. It's just words. It's just their own words, I should say. And such words will not withstand the shaking of the heaven and the distress in earth when the last days come. But we who believe in Jesus Christ and have his words find hope, not in our words, but his. Words that will still mean something, even everything, in that moment when these heavens and this earth are plainly passing away. To the practical conclusion of Christ's Olivet Discourse, we return next week in verse 33. I mean verse 34. But there in verse 33, I think you already hold the key. Shall we pray? And so Lord Jesus, as we conclude this sermon, we do thank you for your words and what you say about them, what they say to us. And we pray, Lord, that by a counterintuitive grace of Christian faith, that we might believe and hold dear the knowledge that the words of Jesus Christ to his disciples in every generation is more ultimate. the heavens and the earth, that is these heavens and these earth, that beyond that they're passing away, we shall see with our own eyes, in bodies and souls, united in a glorious transformative power, the resurrection of Jesus. We shall behold a new heavens and a new earth, and there'll be no more sin there, and no more darkness, and no more tears and pain, and none of the effects of the fall. And we shall see Jesus face to face, and we shall be his people. And there will be a lot of us there. We shall be able to see that every promise made to us in the pages of the Holy Scripture was at last fulfilled in what Jesus did when he came. We thank you, Lord God, for the revelation of that mystery, that the coming of the Messiah is not in one phase, but in two. We thank you, Lord God, that we are living, in a sense, in the last days, in the age of the gospel. And we thank you, Lord God, for the optimism that we can and have and should have about the success of the gospel, which is now our privilege and responsibility to preach to the world. And we do pray, Lord God, that you would give us that spiritual strength to be able to withstand even when everyone else is falling away, so that, Lord God, whether it be our generation or the generation of our children or some other generation to come, that when these things do come to pass in what I believe is their ultimate sin, And we pray, Lord God, that the church might yet be strong, and that would be manifest, and they're looking not down and not around, but up. We thank you, Lord God, for such a wonderful passage and such a wonderful hope in Jesus. For it's in his name that we pray, amen. Our hymn of response today is hymn number 128, God Moves in a Mysterious Way. Number 128, please stand with me as we sing together.