Grace Hope Love

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the third part of chapter 14.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the third part of chapter 14.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the first part of chapter 14.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the final part of chapter 13 (an addendum from Matthew 25).

  FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode) 00:00:17:29 - 00:00:19:10 Welcome to Grace. 00:00:19:12 - 00:00:25:15 Hope, love, the broadcast ministry of Calvary Chapel Birmingham and beautiful Alabama. 00:00:41:19 - 00:01:15:16 It's great to have you with us as together we explore the Bible, verse by verse and chapter by chapter. This broadcast is reaching across the world with the amazing, exciting and life changing Word of God. If you would like to partner with us to take the whole book to the whole world, please consider making a donation. To learn more about Calvary Chapel Birmingham and God's plan for your life, or how you can partner with this ministry, go to Calvary birmingham.com. Today God has an extra special message just for you. 00:01:15:18 - 00:01:18:10 So grab your Bible and let's dig in. 00:01:29:06 - 00:02:04:05 For the last several Sundays, we've been studying through what is commonly known as the Olivet Discourse, and it's called that, of course, because of the location from which the discourse was taught. And that is the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and the temple of the time. So this is the same spot in which Jesus will come in the future to establish his his kingdom. A few chapters back in our study of Mark, Jesus entered Jerusalem with what seemed to be triumphant acclaim from all the crowds. But after disrupting the commercial activities in the temple, things took a turn. 00:02:04:11 - 00:02:35:04 The next morning, Jesus engaged with the religious leaders, and this was followed by Jesus giving public warning to the crowds and to his disciples about the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. And then he pronounced woes against the religious leaders. We don't have those in Mark, but we have had those in Matthew. Now his disciples began to see that things were getting dangerous because the religious leaders in Jerusalem, they recognized, are out to get Jesus and try to silence him. Much earlier in Jesus's ministry, they had determined to destroy him. 00:02:35:06 - 00:03:05:13 That is, the religious leaders had already determined to destroy him. Even as Jesus is giving this discourse then to his disciples, they are orchestrating their plans, and soon enough, Judas will betray Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, located on this same Mount of Olives. And as for timeline, we where we are, it is two days before Passover, and so Jesus urgently turns his attention to his disciples. He prepares. 00:03:05:15 - 00:03:50:15 He's preparing his followers for the events that are to come. This is the fifth and final discourse from Jesus to his disciples. As we have seen, this discourse is prophecy, and it's to prepare his disciples for what they will experience as they do the work as apostles of preaching the gospel and building the church. And so that they understand the urgency of the message. Jesus describes the catastrophic events of judgment that will befall the nation, including the destruction of the temple and in the even more distant future, the end times and what the end times will mean for not only the world, but for Israel. 00:03:50:28 - 00:04:24:05 That is very important, really, for our understanding of this text. Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the end times and Israel and what it means for Israel. Um, all of what he has said in the discourse and in the parables and the illustrations that are centered around this discourse, has been very Israel centric. However, Gentile believers are not excluded. Certainly all believers need to understand this text. This text will be an important witness for those who enter the tribulation period. 00:04:24:07 - 00:05:00:03 But of course, also for believers today, these are events that will be experienced worldwide, like the Great Flood was a worldwide flood, and an understanding of this text enables us to better understand end times prophecy found in the Old Testament. Um, what is contained in the final book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. But there is also. A great reminder. About and encouragement to faithfulness and warning about unfaithfulness. 00:05:00:06 - 00:05:30:29 Now, you may have heard other pastors teach this text differently. Um, there are a lot of different words you could key off key off of within this text. I mean, we have words like war, plague, earthquake, sorrow. Um, gospel is a good one, of course. Um. Abomination. Desecration. Tribulation. Saved. Elect this generation. Days of Noah is in Matthew, and we'll touch on that today as well. Um. Thief. Uh. Be ready. 00:05:31:01 - 00:06:03:09 Faithful. Wise. Um. We'll see as we, uh, study a little bit in Matthew as well. We'll see the use of the word oil. Um, bridegroom. Uh, talents. And, you know, I myself have heard many messages that. That read a couple of the scriptures from this, and then then kind of pick a word within those couple of verses and key off of it into something completely, um, off topic, uh, sorrow. 00:06:03:11 - 00:06:38:02 You know, sorrow. What are you what sorrow are you dealing with today? Um. Saved. How do you know that you're saved? Do you know that? You know that you know that you know. Oil. Have you experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, my friend? Is your lamp filled with oil? And. Even to the absurd talents. Will you use your talents to serve pastor's vision for the church? All you have to do is actually read the text in context. 00:06:38:25 - 00:07:14:01 And you will find that that especially is absolutely absurd. Now, with the exception of that last. And I admit that was. That's low hanging fruit. Um, it's it's it's so out there. It's just low hanging fruit now. But, um, with the exception of that last absurd example, there is good reason to deal with many of those other things. But this text is not necessarily the place to deal with those things. Um, deal with those things when you get to the text that actually deals with them in the text does exist, that deals with all those things. 00:07:14:03 - 00:07:45:21 Otherwise you are not rightly dividing the word of truth. The great danger of keying off of one word in a verse or within a small segment of text is then the flesh can take that wherever it wants, almost always ending up with a very subtle message about either earning your salvation or doing the works to maintain your standing or your salvation, which is not only contrary to the good news of eternal salvation by grace through faith. 00:07:45:23 - 00:08:18:18 It is a trap that leads to a rejection of grace and a rebuke at the judgment seat of Christ. Now, we talked about taking a literal approach to Scripture last week as well. It does not mean that that we believe that the earth is flat, or that the moon makes its own light. Rather, a literal approach to the text means we maintain a high standard when it comes to interpreting Scripture. It means we do our best to consider the intent of the author, and not to go beyond that. 00:08:18:20 - 00:09:14:08 And that also means that we are willing to let the text speak rather than us speaking for the text. Now that out of the way, in the previous part of this discourse, after answering the disciples questions regarding the temple and its destruction, Jesus continues with prophecy of the end times and the tribulation and His second coming. Over the last few Sundays, we looked at the condition of the world and the condition of the world. When Jesus comes to take his church, ushering in then the seven years of tribulation, Jesus spoke about conditions Israel will endure during the tribulation, the rebuilt temple implying that the Law of Moses is back in observance, in effect, that Antichrist and the desecration of the Temple Israel fleeing to get away, Israel seeing Jesus's return, the great battle at the end, and Israel's salvation. 00:09:14:10 - 00:09:53:01 And then Jesus moved out of the discourse and into using parable and illustrating again. And with that, Jesus went from dealing with eschatological events to dealing with attitudes, drawing contrasts between those who are faithful, prepared, and watchful, and those who are not. Bart does not include all of these parables and illustrations, and we may. We made note of that last week, but because there has been such terrible teaching for many of these illustration parables, I'm going to take us out of Mark later on this morning and into Matthew so that we can cover that ground as well. 00:09:53:03 - 00:10:30:16 Now, a word of caution in studying these. We must be careful not to make assumptions that will lead us to wrong conclusions. In regards to these parables and these illustrations, it's important to note that the outcome is reward or retribution. Expecting or not expecting. Christ's return makes a large difference in the lives of those characters in the illustrations. We will understand through these paragraphs that unbelievers will suffer loss by not being prepared. 00:10:30:18 - 00:11:01:25 It is also the case that believers will suffer loss to not like unbelievers, but loss nonetheless. Loss of rewards. And so we find Jesus directing believers to watch and to be ready. And that's really that really is important for us to remember as we study through these things. The text may not be speaking of eternal life versus condemnation, even though the text may cause us to want to assume that we must not assume we must remain in context. 00:11:01:27 - 00:11:32:03 And so we find that the greater idea is faithfulness, being watchful so that one is found faithful and faithfulness is rewarded. And that implies that believers who are not watchful and thus not concerned about being faithful to Christ, uh, to Christ, suffer loss not of eternal life, but of rewards. So I think that pretty much well sets up our study as as Jesus continues to teach with the parable of the faithful and the wise slave. 00:11:32:20 - 00:12:09:16 Um, we'll get to that in a second. Here, I want us to pray, and then we'll dig in. Heavenly father, we thank you for this ne

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the second part of chapter 13.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the final part of chapter 11.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the second part of chapter 11.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the first part of chapter 10.

Join Pastor Shawn and the gang at Calvary Chapel Birmingham as they study the Bible verse by verse and chapter by chapter. In this episode, we continue our study in Mark with the final part of chapter 9.