September 15, 2024
It's the End of the World As We Know It (Part 1)
- Matt Nickoson
Sermon Notes
Luke 17:20-21 NIV
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
The people of God are marked by the presence of God.
1 Peter 2:5 NIV
you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
All four passages (Luke 17, Luke 21, Matthew 24, Mark 13) are at least partly referring to a prophetic moment when God will vindicate Jesus and Judge Israel.
Luke 19:39-44 NIV
“Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Luke 21:5-6 NIV
Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
Matthew 24:3 NIV
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Mark 13:30-31 NIV
“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
Luke 17:22 NIV
Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.”
Luke 17:23 NIV
“People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them.”
Luke 17:24-25 NIV
“For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.”
Luke 17:26-27 NIV
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.”
Luke 17:28-29 NIV
“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.”
Leading up to this return of Jesus to judge Israel, life on Earth will be going on as usual.
Luke 17:30-32 NIV
“It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife!”
Luke 17:33 NIV
“Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.”
Luke 17:34-35 NIV
“I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
“Followers of Jesus fled Jerusalem before its siege by the Romans and its destruction. The records of history show that there were no Christians in Jerusalem at that time, because they took Jesus to heart with words like this, and other words that he said, and when they saw what was happening they said “we’re out of here!” and they fled the city.” – John Whittaker, The Listener’s Commentary podcast
Luke 17:37 NIV
“Where, Lord?” they asked.
He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”
Luke 17:37 KJV
And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.
What makes end times prophecy complex is: We are in the Kingdom of the already and the not yet.
Luke 17:21b NIV
“…kingdom of God is in your midst.”
Ephesians 1:17-18 NIV
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,
Ephesians 1:19-20 NIV
and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,
Ephesians 1:21 NIV
far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
Ephesians 1:22-23 NIV
And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.