Sunday Sermon

"Perseverance of the Saints"
[Mark 13:1-13]
October 1, 2006 Second Reformed Church

Is it possible to be sure of our salvation? Can we be sure that our salvation can never be lost? Can we know that if we have believed in Jesus Christ Alone for our salvation that there is no possible way that we could ever be lost again?

We could pose the question this way: is salvation completely the Work of God Alone, or do we, in some way, participate in our salvation? Do we really, even to the smallest degree, contribute to our being saved?

If salvation is our own work, to any degree, then we can be saved and then lost and then saved and then lost, and so forth, never sure about our eternal destiny. But if salvation is wholly the Work of God Alone, who among us is able to force himself out of God's Hands? Who among us can stop God from carrying out His Will?

Jesus and His disciples left the temple, and one of the disciples turned to look, and marveled at the craftsmanship, "Teacher, look at the wonderful stones and the wonderful buildings!" And, indeed, the temple was an amazing piece of work: the historian, Josephus, records that some of the stones were fifty feet by twenty-four feet by sixteen feet. The temple was huge and magnificent. Yet, Jesus revealed to them, that as magnificent as the temple was, a day was coming when every stone of the temple would be cast aside -- the temple would be utterly destroyed.

The temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed most recently in 63 B.C., and the ruins remained until 19 B.C., when Herod began to rebuild the temple. Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple in about 27 A. D., yet Herod's temple wasn't even completed until thirty-four years later, in 64 A. D. The temple that Jesus worshiped and preached in, took about eighty-three years to build. We understand then, how angry Jesus made the Pharisees, after He had cleansed the temple, when they asked Him, "'What sign do you show us for doing these things?' Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews then said, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?'" (John 2:18b-20).

Jesus might as well have said that Israel and all her people were going to be destroyed, because, to them, the temple was the symbol of God's being with them. If the temple was destroyed, it would mean that God had left them -- and they did not know when He would return. It would be an embarrassment to the nation and the Name of God.

In 70 A. D., the Emperor Titus and his troops destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, as Josephus records, "[the temple at Jerusalem], however, God long ago had sentenced to the flames; but now in the revolution of the time-periods the fateful day had arrived, the tenth of the month of Lous, the very day on which previously it had been burned by the king of Babylon....One of the soldiers, neither awaiting orders nor filled with horror of so dread an undertaking, but moved by some supernatural impulse, snatched a brand from the blazing timber and, hoisted up by one of his fellow soldiers, flung the fiery missel through the golden window....When flames rose, a scream, as poignant as the tragedy, went up from the Jews...now that the object which before they had guarded so closely was going to ruin....The emperor ordered the entire city and the sanctuary to be razed to the ground....the city was so completely razed to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no reason to believe it had ever been inhabited" (Hendriksen, p. 513).

Jesus and the disciples walked across the valley and sat down on the Mount of Olives, looking at the temple on the hill across the valley, and Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately, when these things would happen and what the signs would be. Not just when the temple would be destroyed, but when would the end of the age come. When would the Messiah fully bring His Kingdom to earth. We know Jesus was answering a question of more than the mere destruction of the temple, as monumental as that would be, because, as Matthew records for us, Jesus said, "And the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14). Not just the destruction of the temple, but the end.

Jesus told them that there would many people who come in His Name, but they are false teachers and anti-Christs. There are people who would come after Him and say that they were the Messiah, the Christ, even that they were Jesus, Himself. And many will be led astray by the false teachers. And there will be wars -- nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom -- and there will be rumors of wars.

And Jesus told them that when false teachers come and false Saviors come and when war breaks out and rumors of war flood the airwaves -- there are wrong ways to respond, and a right way to respond. Just like today, when there are false teachers and false Christs, even within the Christian Church -- and there are wars and rumors of wars. How should they -- how should we -- react?

A wrong way to act is the way of the zealot and the Zionist -- to go into war with joy, hoping for a great slaughter that will bring about the kingdom. There were zealots in Jesus' day encouraging Him to overthrow the Roman government. There are Zionists today who believe the temple must be rebuilt, and all the Jews relocated, and then they must be slaughtered -- after that, Christ will reign.

Another wrong way to act is to fear: "There are false teachers in the Church -- all is lost -- no one is to be believed. There are wars and civil war -- this is the end of the world -- I heard that the war is spreading." Jesus said, "Do not be alarmed. It is necessary that these things happen, but this is not the completion." False teachers and war are signs that the end of the age is coming, but it is not the end -- how long have there been false teachers in the Church? How long have there been wars on the planet? Are they escalating? But this is not the end -- not yet.

During the Gulf War, and now the war in Iraq, I have had people come to me and ask if this is the end. Is this Armageddon? Is this the Apocalypse? Is this the end of the age? And the answer must be, "no." These are signs that time is passing, that our nature hasn’t changed, that sin is still prevalent. But this is not the end.

We are to pay attention: look at the wars being fought, look and expose and denounce and remove the false teachers in the Church, look at the increase in earthquakes and famines. Jesus said these are the birth pangs. The creation is in labor; the age is in labor. But the birth has not occurred.

And then we have a promise of suffering -- that if they, and we, preach the Gospel -- Christians will be unjustly tried in the civil courts and in the synagogues and churches -- and Christians will be physically abused in the synagogues and churches. And we will be tried in the highest courts -- before princes and kings -- and there, we ought not to shut our mouths in fear, or denounce our confession. No, Jesus commands us to bear witness before them. When Paul was brought to Rome to be executed, he, first, as a Roman citizen, had the right to speak to the emperor, and he did, and bore witness to the Gospel before him. Paul preached the Gospel to the Emperor of Rome, and then he was decapitated. If we have the opportunity, we are to do likewise. Without fearing.

But first, the Gospel will be preached to all the nations. What does that mean? A church I used to be a member of taught that this means that there has to be a translation of the Bible in every language of the world, then Jesus will return. But that can't be what it means. No, usually, more often then not, when the New Testament writers talk about the world and about all the nations, they mean this: not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. One of the major problems of the New Testament is making it clear that Jesus is not just for the Jews -- the Gospel is not just for the Jews -- it is for the Gentiles as well, for all the nations, for the whole world.

Still, Christians ought to expect that they will be brought before the civil courts and also be persecuted in the Church. And Jesus said that we ought not to be preparing a speech. We ought not to have lines memorized. Why not? Because the Holy Spirit, Who lives in us, will tell us what to say. What does that mean? Will we speak a new revelation? Will we speak some foreign tongue or magic words that will get us out of trouble? No. Jesus said that will be tried for the sake of bearing witness to Christ. He does not promise to get us out of unjust trial. He said, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all I have said to you" (John 14:26). In other words, God will help us to remember what we know about Jesus, so we can bear witness to Him. One of the reasons we suffer as Christians is to bear witness to Jesus.

And Jesus promised that believing in Him will destroy families -- even to the extent that brothers will seek to have each other put to death, and fathers will try to kill their children and children will try to kill their parents. "And you will be hated for my name's sake." And let us not think for a moment that all of this only applied to the disciples, because the verb "hated" in that verse is a verb of continuous action, so Jesus was saying that "you" disciples who followed Jesus while He was on earth and all of the Christians throughout history will continue to be hated for believing in Him.

Aren't these things happening? It may not seem like they're happening so much here in the United States -- our persecution of Christians has been very polite in this country. But in Darfor, and in China, and Iran, and other places around the world, if you convert to Christianity, you are put to death. Since the beginning of Christianity, the enemies of God have seen fit to exterminate it. There were ten great persecutions in the Middle East between the Resurrection and 312 A. D., lead largely by the Roman government. The most brutal of these was the tenth, under Emperor Diocletian, who commanded that the church be terminated once and for all.

The Christian theologian, Tertullian, wrote to the emperor, "Go on, rack, torture, grind us into powder: our numbers increase in proportion as you mow us down. The blood of Christians is their harvest seed" (Hendriksen, p. 523).

And then we have this word from Jesus that ends this morning's reading, "And the one who perseveres to the end will be saved." The Perseverance of the Saints -- that's one of the distinctive doctrines of the Reformed Church. If we persevere to the end, we will be saved!

But will we persevere, as we are faced with false teachers and anti-Christs, war and loss in war, rumors of impending war, earthquakes, famines, being falsely accused and unjustly tried and punished, both by the civil government and the state, being betrayed by our own family members, having our family members kill each other, having our own life threatened, and being called to defend what we believe. Will we persevere to the end?

If it was up to us, based on our ability, no, not a single one of us would persevere to the end. I wouldn't. And none of you would. But the great news of God is that it is not we who persevere ourselves, but it is the Almighty God Who, Himself, perseveres us for Himself, so everyone who believes in Jesus Alone for salvation will persevere to the end without question, without exception.

Remember that famous passage from Romans, "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died -- more than that, who was raised -- who is at the right hand of God, who is interceeding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation [and that includes you and me], will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:33-39).

Therefore, all those who are Christians, truly believing in Jesus Christ Alone for salvation, we are not astonished or alarmed or paralyzed by the things that happen in the world or the things that happen to us and our loved ones. They may be painful, but we do not lose hope, because we know and can endure all things and recognize them as part of God's Plan, leading to His Glorious Return and the restoration of all things.

Let us trust God and take Him at His Word, doing those things He has commanded us to do, and waiting on Him in hope, for He is the Sovereign Lord, He always was the Sovereign Lord, and He will always be the Sovereign Lord. And He has come, in His Word and in its preaching, and now in the bread and the cup, to minister to us and strengthen us for the work He has given us.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, Sovereign of the Universe, we thank You that You have not left us to a random world, but You have a Plan and it is being carried out, just as You planned it. We thank You for the assurance that all those You have chosen will always be Yours. We ask that You would strengthen us, increase our hope and faith, and give us boldness to always confess You. In Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.