Celestial Signs of the Coming Savior (Luke 21:25-26)

It is that moment when we turn to the Word of God to hear the Word of the Lord. The text before us today is found in Luke chapter 21... Luke chapter 21. And as you know, if you've been studying God's Word with us, chapter twenty-one of the gospel of Luke is about the return of Jesus. Christ. In fact, they are our Lord's own words regarding his return. He had a lot to say about the Second Coming. He delivered this message on the Mount of Olives on the Wednesday afternoon of Passion Week. After teaching all day in the temple and being confronted by the leaders, he went out, sat next to the Mount of Olives, and spoke to the disciples about his Second Coming.

The following Thursday they celebrated Easter. On Friday he was crucified. Sunday He rose from the dead. Forty days later he ascended to heaven where he has been until he returns. The world is very familiar, at least the Western world, with the elements of Christmas, the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, the story of his first

coming

. Most people are familiar with Bethlehem and a manger and Joseph and Mary and there is no room in the inn and the star and the angels and the shepherds and the wise men and maybe even Herod and the slaughter of the innocents.

These are precious elements of the well-known story of the first

coming

of our Lord. All of those elements are part of a grand scheme of things that God has revealed in the Scriptures. There are at least over 300 Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the first coming of Jesus Christ. The details of his first coming were set forth in the Old Testament. These were the details of his Second Coming. In fact, the Old Testament in many places and in many ways describes details that were not fulfilled in his first coming to be fulfilled in his Second Coming. The precision with which the details of his first coming were fulfilled validates the Old Testament and establishes the credibility of those details prophesied regarding his second coming.

In fact, the Bible has so much to say about His Second Coming that essentially this morning we are going to hear from God Himself. I do not hesitate to read you the Word of God, it is the Word of God. It is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, it is penetrating, it divides the soul and the spirit, the thoughts and intentions of the heart that are revealed. It's like a fire, it's like a hammer. It burns, destroys, but also heals and saves. And much of what we do this morning will be to hear the very Word of God about the return of Jesus Christ.

But let's start in Luke 21 with verse 25 and listen to what Jesus said about his Second Coming. "And there will be

signs

in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars. And on the earth, dismay among the nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and of the waves. Men fainting for fear and expectation of things that will come in the world, because the powers of the heavens will be shaken and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to happen, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near. near." The Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Very different from the first time he came in a manger with humility, condescension and humility, not next time. And maybe in God's perfect timing this will be a good time to fill in the details about his return. What are those details? Well, we just read some of them. Verse 25: "There will be

signs

in the sun and the moon and the stars, the roaring of the sea and the waves, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken." Here is a summary of the elements that will precede the return of Jesus Christ and this is the summary of the Lord Himself.

These are his words. Now this is really the climax, this is the culmination of a long discourse that began in verse 8. And it began in response to the questions that the disciples were asking. The questions were primarily asked by the main apostles we know, but they probably resonated throughout the group as they formed and formulated their own version of the question. Jesus had said that he was going to die. He was going to get up. He was going to leave. And He was going to return and establish the Kingdom and glory of it. They wanted to know when.

And then in verse 7 they asked him, saying, "Teacher, when then will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to happen?" Parallel to Luke's account of this speech by Jesus is Matthew's account, which takes up two chapters, Matthew 24 and 25, and Mark's account, which is in Mark 13. So we have much of what Jesus said on this occasion. , a longer answer than any other question asked recorded in the New Testament. But what prompted him was the disciples' question as to when He would come and establish His Kingdom. Matthew 24 records in verse 3 that some of the disciples asked, "What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the world?" So they were asking the question in different ways and Jesus was giving them broad answers, repeating himself and clarifying himself as he explained things, the combination of everything he said is included in the three gospel accounts.

Now, as we look at verses 25 through 28 and consider the very event of his return, it will be helpful for us to break it down into some manageable chunks. And I want to do it using only one keyword. The first word is "sequence...sequence." That word helps us begin to understand. Verse 25: "And it will be..." Now stop there for a moment. The ending catches my attention, it is a connective, it tells us that this is in some sequence. That's why our first word is sequence. "And" takes us back, what came before this? Well, if you've been here, you know what came before.

When the question was asked...what will be the sign of Your coming and what will indicate that these things will come?...Jesus gave them broad answers. He first said: "From now until My Second Coming there will be some general realities that you must know. The first is deception." We saw that, didn't we, in verse 8. "People will come in his name, pretending to be Christ, or representing Christ, or representing Christianity, and they will deceive the people. Do not go after them." Do not follow false Messiahs or false forms of Christianity, they will proliferate. Jesus has said it in other ways on other occasions, here he says it again.

It is to be expected during this period, between the two comings, a proliferation of false Christianity. And in fact we have seen that to the extent that there is more false Christianity in the world than true Christianity, there are more false representatives of Christ than true ones, there are more false Christians than true Christians. In fact, this has happened. Is increasing. Is growing. False forms of Christianity are growing and growing. They will continue to flourish and reach their peak just before the Lord returns in final forms of apostate Christianity described in the book of Revelation as well as in some of the New Testament epistles.

The second thing our Lord told us to expect was disasters. Not just deceptions, but disasters. There will be great earthquakes, plagues, famines, terrors... that has to do with everything that is not specifically already listed, in terms of climate, terrestrial catastrophes, natural disasters, etc., great signs from heaven. This is an indication of the calamities and wars that will characterize human history and that will continue to engulf the world and will escalate and worsen in the end. The third thing he said would be expected in this long time between the two comings is an escalation of persecution. They will lay hands on you, they will persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and prisons, and in the case of the Jews, the synagogues were the courts where they tried Christians and then imprisoned them in prisons.

They will take you before kings and governors, that speaks of gentile persecution. Verse 17 says that you will all be hated because of My name. This is what to expect. Expect false forms of Christianity that misrepresent Me and the truth. Expect global disasters, continually, getting worse in the end. And expect to be pursued throughout history until I come. These things have happened. They are still visible to us today and get worse and worse as time passes and we get closer to Christ's return. Also thinking about the sequence, we move from verses 8 to 19, general characteristics of the period between the two comings, to a specific event in verse 20.

In verses 20 to 24, Jesus says: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded of armies, then he recognizes that his desolation is near." That will tell you, verse 22, that the days of vengeance, an Old Testament term that speaks of the day of the Lord and God's vengeance, have begun. “This is the time,” says verse 22, “for all things written to be fulfilled.” That is the consummation of everything. You will know that you are near the end when for the last time Jerusalem is surrounded by armies and its desolation is near. Matthew and Mark add to this by telling us that what triggers the so-called abomination of desolation, mentioned by the prophet Daniel three times, is the desecration of the holy place in a rebuilt temple that the Jews are using to worship God in which the Antichrist will erect a idol of himself and will demand that everyone worship him and then he will turn against the Jews and massacre them.

Their goal will be to genocide and then massacre Christians who have come to faith during that period by preaching the gospel throughout the world in an attempt to erase both God's people, Israel, and God's people, believers. , from the earth. Sequence. You have a long period of time described in verses 18 and 19. Then in verses 29 to 24 you have that period at the end called the time of the Tribulation. In the middle of that Tribulation time, which is a period of seven years, according to Daniel 9, in the middle of that period the Great Tribulation is launched. That is when the abomination of desolation occurs.

And then, for the last three and a half years, before the Lord comes, all hell breaks loose in this world. God judges and uses Satan and uses demons, and uses cataclysmic events of all kinds to effect these last three and a half years of terror in the world. At the same time that the gospel will be preached, people will believe. So that's the sequence. Now it is implied in verse 25 in the word "and." It is implied that we are in the flow. But we don't have to rely on implication because in the parallel text of Matthew 24:29 and Mark 13:24, they both record that Jesus actually said, "After the tribulation...after the tribulation." So as that Tribulation comes to its culmination, as it comes to an end, these signs will occur in the sun, the moon and the stars.

They come in a rush at the end of the Tribulation time, just before the return of Christ. Mark tells us that our Lord called this future a time of tribulation. Matthew tells us that He calls it a time of Great Tribulation. And they both say it's something the world has never seen or imagined in its horror. So that's the sequence. There is a period of history described by deception, disaster, and the anguish of persecution. Then at the end there is a time of Tribulation, Great Tribulation in which the Antichrist with his massive national coalition comes to Jerusalem, establishes the cult of himself as the only tolerable religion in the world and then sets out to massacre the Jews, destroying them from the world. land.

God uses it to judge the godless Jews, two-thirds of whom are massacred. God protects one third of those who believe in Christ and who are saved to go to the Kingdom. He also attempts to massacre Gentile believers on the wall around the world. And, of course, God protects many of His people who also go to the Kingdom. That launches the Great Tribulation. Once the Great Tribulation begins, which will last three and a half years, God's judgments begin to escalate until finally at the end the signs indicated in verses 25 to 28 occur. That is the sequence. When evil demons and wicked people have finished the course of their sin in rebellion, when all the worst of vice and iniquity has been exhausted, there will come the holocaust of God's final judgment.

That's the sequence. A second word, and an important one, staging... staging. This is the biggest event in the history of the world, that's because everyone will see it. Only a few people saw Jesus at his first coming...his mother, his father, a few shepherds, maybe a few people related to the town of Bethlehem, just a few. The second time He comes, everyone on the face of the earth will know it. This is the largest and most widespread event in the history of the world and God will set the stage, he will present the backdrop. The setting is indicated in verses 25 and 26.

There will be clear indications in the world that this will happen. Now I want you to think with me about the actual coming of Jesus, for a moment, so look at Acts 1:9. And then I want to backtrack on that to set the stage. In Acts 1:9, Luke, who also wrote Acts, said this: "After Jesus had said these things, he was taken up, and as they looked, a cloud hid him from their sight. And as they looked straight into heaven, while he was leaving, behold, two men, and two angels dressed in white stood by them." Here they are on the Mount of Olives, suddenlyAll men on the face of the earth will tremble before my presence.

The earthquake begins in Jerusalem as it shakes the Antichrist and the powers of him and the nations gather and spread across the earth. The mountains will also be torn down, causing the sea and waves to roar. Steep paths will collapse and all walls will fall to the ground. And I will call a sword against him in all my mountains, declares the Lord God. Every man's sword will be against his brother, and with pestilence and blood I will enter into judgment against him and will rain on him and on his troops and on the many peoples with whom he lives. he is, a torrential rain with hail, fire and brimstone.

And I will magnify myself, sanctify myself, and make myself known in the eyes of many nations, and they will know that I am the Lord.” Haggai, a little two chapters of the prophet Haggai, chapter 2, familiar verses, verses 6 and 7, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, once again in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea too and the land will be dry, and I will shake all the nations and they will come with the riches of all the nations and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts." He is going to take the spoils of the world after He shakes it and destroys the wicked and He has a right to all of it. "The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, declares the Lord of hosts." Zephaniah, a little prophecy back, chapter 1, same thing, 14, chapter 1 verse 14, "The great day of the Lord is near, near and coming very suddenly.

Listen, the day of the Lord, you can almost hear it coming, listen, the day of wrath is that day, a day of anguish and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and sadness, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the cities. fortified and high corner towers and I will bring anguish to men so that they walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord and their blood will be shed like dust and their flesh like dung, neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the Day. of the wrath of the Lord and the whole earth will be devoured in the fire of His jealousy because He will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying of all the inhabitants of the earth." That's all.

That's the end. Now, the simple disciples knew all those prophecies. And when Jesus said what He said, they knew what He spoke about...final judgment just before the Let's go back from him to the book of Revelation, and I close with this. In the book of Revelation, John, one of those Apostles, was given further revelation of these same signs that strike the heavens, the earth, the sun, the sun. the moon, the stars, the seas, the waves. John is given visions of the final judgments at the end of the Tribulation time. Revelation 6 verse 12. In the seven-year Tribulation, the judgments come out of seven seals, those seven seals extend throughout the seven years.

When you get to the end and you get to the sixth and seventh seal, the judgments intensify. Here is the sixth seal, verse 12, “There was a great earthquake, the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair,” black goat hair, black as a wolf's mouth. The sun goes out. The entire moon becomes like blood that hardens into darkness. The stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree sheds its green figs when shaken by a great wind. And the sky was torn like a rolled up scroll. You unroll a scroll like this, let it go, and burrrrrr, it rolls up.

The sky is rolled up like a scroll. Every mountain and island was removed from their places. This has to be near the end because it's not really a survivable planet. The kings of the earth, the great men, the commanders, the rich, the strong, every slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and the rocks: Fall on us. and hide from the presence of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of wrath has come and who can stand?" This is the future of our planet.

Chapter 8 describes the seventh seal. "And from the seventh seal, which is the last seal, come seven trumpets. The seven trumpets make up the seventh seal." And we'll look at just a few of them. Go to verse 5...or verse 6, "The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. As the first touched them, hail and fire mixed with blood came, like things that would happen in an altered Chaotic universe. They were thrown to the ground. A third of the land was burned. A third of the trees were burned. All the green grass was burned. The second angel played, like a great mountain burning with fire. was thrown into the sea, a third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, a third of the ships were destroyed, a third angel sounded his trumpet and a great star fell from the sky, burning as one. torch, fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water and the name of the star is called Wormwood and the third part of the waters became wormwood and many men died from the waters because they became bitter.

A fourth angel sounded the trumpet and. a third of the sun and a third of the moon, a third of the stars were wounded so that a third of them became dark and the day did not shine on a third of it and the night in the same way." This is horrible, the gradual extinction of the sun, moon and stars. When it first happens, day and night are distorted, things no longer grow, tides are altered. Tsunamis happen everywhere. "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, for the remaining trumpet blasts of the three angels that are ready to sound!" In chapter 16, seven bowls come forth from the seventh trumpet.

These are the absolute final elements. of the judgment, the judgments of the cup. Look at verse 8: "The fourth angel of chapter 16, the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun and it was given to him to burn men with fire. And before it goes out, somehow God increases the heat of it. Men were scorched with a fierce heat, they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues, they did not repent to give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, because his kingdom was darkened and they.

They bit their tongues because of the pain. "Intense heat and then it goes away. "Again they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their wounds and did not repent of their deeds." Go to verse 17. " The seventh angel... this is the final bowl of the final trumpet of the final seal... poured out his bowl into the air, and a great voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, 'It is over. It is one. There were lightning, noises and thunder, a great earthquake such as had not been since man came to earth, so great it was and so powerful and the great city was divided into three parts and.

The cities of the nations fell down, and Babylon the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of wine of her fierce fury and every island fled and the mountains were not found and huge hailstones weighing about a hundred pounds each fell from the earth. darling. on men and men blasphemed against God because of the plague of hail, because its plague was extremely severe." So, the visions of John, the words of Jesus coincide perfectly with the prophecy of the Old Testament. This is the setting scene. All of it in chaos and total darkness. And that's where Christ comes.

And we'll see that next time. Bow your head with me for a moment. The sad part of this is that there are people who have lived through the Tribulation. the future, they have heard the gospel, they have preached throughout the world at that time, they have seen Israel repent, they have seen Gentiles from every tongue, tribe, people and nation repent, they come to salvation, then they have been warned again and again again and again and again that Jesus comes to judge. They have seen the trumpets. They have experienced the bowl judgments. And even when it comes to the end.

They are still blaspheming against the God of heaven. somehow you can wait until all that starts and come to Christ, you can put an end to the blasphemers. This is the day of salvation. This is the day of repentance. This is the time to embrace Christ. Father, thank you again for telling us these things. You give us these warnings. You lay this out unequivocally so we can know what's coming. There is no mystery about the future of this planet. There is no mystery about how everything is coming to an end. Everything is repeatedly clear. May we live in light of this.

And as we hear in the music, may we know that this is the time of grace, this is the hour of salvation, this is the time for us to take in this wonderful reality of Christ's coming into the world to die for our sins, to Rise up for our justification and proclaim that message everywhere, give us passion for the gospel. May we take it to the ends of the earth. Let us beg men to be reconciled to God while there is time. May many come to faith in Christ before they die or before facing this horrible judgment.

And for those of us who already belong to You, we seek that secret moment in which You take us out of this world and free us from the time of coming Tribulation and reward us at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Thank you Lord for saving us. Save sinners today for your glory, we pray in the name of Christ. Amen.