B-Side - Mark 13:32-37

Mark 13:32-37 is also a chiasm! And it's the conclusion to the Olivet Discourse. The whole section seems to be a different timeline than the fig tree section earlier; it's about the Master returning to the house.

The heart of the Olivet Discourse is to proclaim the Gospel to all nations. While the Master is gone from our home, we are doorkeepers who each have our own work to do for the kingdom... our work is to, in various ways, proclaim the Gospel to all nations!

v32...

Only the Father knows the time and day. Hebrews 4:15... Jesus is truly God, and also truly human. As the Son, He fully relinquished His life into the hands of the Father. In His deity, He knows all things, but in His humanity, he was limited to not know. So as someone who has experienced limited knowledge, He understands our worries!

v33...

Be on guard, stay awake, for we don't know when He's coming! Be vigilant, but not at the expense of enjoying life, enjoying the Lord! Lay down your life for the glory of God, but enjoy what you have while you have it: the conclusion of Ecclesiastes. It all belongs to God. Be very serious about your faith, your walk with God, your witness, and seriously enjoy God! Phillippians 4:4: be joyful! 

Jesus is coming at a time when we don't expect it. Just be ready, be found spreading the Gospel with our lives! The return of the Lord is a source of joy. We celebrate because we'll spend eternity with Him!

v34... Jesus will go on a journey (ascend to the Father)... we will be left to do His work in the meantime. In the Bible, there is no such thing as an undercover Christian: you are either a faithful priest or a wicked priest! You must be all in for God, not living in sin. Walk in repentance. Be good and faithful servants!

v35... Stay awake, so He doesn't find you sleeping! 1 Thessalonians: the day will come like a thief in the night. Be on alert. We just need to be ready!

v37... Stay awake!

Conclusion...

Question: Does the thought of Jesus returning terrify you, or bring you hope?

If you're unaffected, you should be terrified. Luke gives an example of the wicked servant who paid no mind to the return of the master, and got chopped to pieces.

If it terrifies you, either you're in sin, or you're struggling with assurance.

 - Regarding sin, you need to deal with it NOW. Bring people in if you must, accountability partners. 

 - Regarding assurance, talk to your pastor. And remember: it's not about your performance or failures, but His sufficiency, who He is! To see if you're a genuine believer, read through 1 John. Are you living it day to day, trusting in Him, gathering with the Church? If so, cross it off. You're good! You don't need a lightning-bolt moment to know you're saved, and your failures don't dictate whether you're saved. Stop worrying and accept that He has done the work!

If the thought of His return brings you hope, you can live in the joy of knowing that you belong to Him, and simply live in a state of being ready for His return!

If you're indifferent, you're like the wicked priests... a servant in the Church who is mistreating the Church.

Final thought:

Check the Study Guide! Some Church history...

The earliest sources show that Jesus is coming back. So we spend a lot of time thinking about when and how. 

The early Church overcame Rome and Christianized it. Augustine settled into amillennialism. It looked from the perspective of their time that all the things spoken about the return of Jesus were in the past.

Luther and the reformers changed back to a more Biblical perspective in general, but kept Augustine's a millennial perspective, because Luther didn't like certain books of the Bible.

In the 1830s, Darby came up with dispensationalism, wherein the rapture is a separate event from the second coming. The Lord returns, gathers His elect in the air, leaves, the 7 years of great tribulation happen, then He comes back to judge the living and the dead.

D.L. Moody and Billy Graham both believed whole-heartedly in the dispensationalist view, and used it as a tool to pressure people toward repentance.

Today there's a huge resurgence of post-millennialism: that the Lord will return at the end of all things, and the Church will usher in a golden age. In this view, all the events of Revelation happened in 70 AD.

So the Church historically believed in a post-tribulational return, before the millennium. The Augustine kicked off a 1400-year period of the main belief being there would be no millennium. The Puritans became post-millennials. Then in the 1800s through now, dispensationalism. Today, post-millennialism and preterism (which overlap) are popular. Preterism is the belief that the millennium began with Jesus' first coming and continues until He returns, eventually blossoming into the golden age of the Church. 

So lots of historical moving parts to this aspect of theology!

The disciples want precise timelines... Jesus declines to give them any, but says that when it comes, it will come quickly. In the meantime, we are to remain on guard!

Why has He waited so long? To allow as many souls as possible to enter His Kingdom! He waits because every day, more and more are being added to the Church! An act of mercy to the unsaved. We preach the Gospel to people so they would receive the Gospel, and as soon as the last person God wants to save is saved, He will come back. God knows who will be in Heaven. He's been preparing it for us, and He will gather His people! In the meantime, we wait and proclaim His Gospel.