Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S49 || Persecution and the Antichrist || Mark 13:9-20 || Session 49 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
The Olivet Discourse represents one of Jesus' most significant prophetic teachings, and in this episode, we continue our study deep into Mark 13:9-20 where Jesus provides both warnings and comfort for believers facing persecution.
Jesus begins with a sobering prediction that His followers would face arrests, beatings, and trials before authorities. While directly addressing His disciples, these words have found fulfillment throughout church history – from the apostles' experiences in Acts to devastating Roman persecutions and continuing today in regions where Christianity remains illegal. Yet within this warning comes profound comfort: "Do not worry beforehand about what to say... for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit." This divine promise has sustained countless believers facing opposition for their faith.
The episode culminates with an examination of "The Abomination of Desolation" mentioned in verse 14. While some scholars connect this to historical events like Jerusalem's destruction in 70 AD, we carefully analyze the chronology and evidence suggesting this points to a future tribulation period unparalleled in human history. Jesus provides specific instructions for believers to flee immediately when witnessing this prophetic sign.
Whether you're curious about biblical prophecy, seeking encouragement during personal trials, or wanting to understand your role in God's global mission, this episode offers biblical insights that strengthen faith and deepen understanding of God's sovereign plan throughout history.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. Today we are in the middle of the Olivet Discourse in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13. Today we're going to start in verse 9. As we mentioned last time, we're holding that part of this Olivet Discourse was fulfilled in the first century, but parts of it are yet to be fulfilled and will be in future times. We'll go through and explain why we think that as we go through this, but nevertheless, there's many parts of this that are very profound and very applicable to our day, whether they were fulfilled yet or not, because there's so much here that applies to Christians of every age. So let's go ahead and dive in. Steve, can you read Mark chapter 13, from verses 9 to 13?
Speaker 2:But be on your guard, for they will deliver you to the courts and you will be flogged in the synagogues and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them. The gospel must first be preached to all the nations when they arrest you and hand you over. Do not worry beforehand about what you're about to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, For it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father, his child and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
Speaker 1:In this. We would maintain that this passage we just read is fulfilled either in the lives of the twelve apostles or immediately thereafter, in the early years of the church, simply because one, it would seem that Christians would not be flogged in synagogues in the end times. Secondly, am I right Steve Matthew 10, verses 17 and following? Doesn't he have this exact same?
Speaker 2:language. Yeah, over in Matthew 10, 17 to 22,. The same language is mentioned here. This was in his ministry in about a year or so before Earlier. In his ministry he says the same exact same thing. The other thing is over in Luke's account. In Luke 21, verse 12, he puts a disclaimer on it. Right after he talked about nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, he says but before all these things, they will lay your hands on you. And then he goes in to say the same thing here that is mentioned in Mark.
Speaker 1:Therefore it would seem, the plain reading of the passage would have this to be fulfilled in the lives of the apostles or very soon thereafter. In here he's very clearly saying that the gospel is going to be preached around the world to the nations, but they're going to be arrested and handed over to the authorities. He's telling them one be ready for that. It's going to happen. You're going to be arrested, handed over to the authorities, but don't worry, because the Holy Spirit's going to speak to you and through you at that time. Steve, in our day we see some Christians around the world that are under a lot of persecution and some are not. So what should we teach our people in our churches about? Is it likely that people would ever be arrested for no more nor less than being?
Speaker 2:a Christian, you might say, Glenn, it depends upon where on the earth that you're residing as to whether it's likely to happen or not.
Speaker 2:We happen to be fortunate enough at this time to live in a country where Christianity is not persecuted the way that it has been persecuted around other parts of the globe. But yeah, in other parts of the earth people risk their lives in order to meet together as Christians. But, as you pointed, I think this specific thing here that he's talking about is in that first century, with those and we saw that depicted in Acts with many times the Sanhedrin pulled in Peter and the other disciples as they were teaching in the temple complex the resurrection of Christ. Every time they pulled them in, they told them stop teaching about this Christ that has been resurrected. This Jesus, Peter finally told them, said we have to obey God. We're not going to do what you tell us to do. We have to obey God. And this is the truth. And he continued that message. Usually we find, whenever the church comes under persecution, that really it spreads further and further and the exact opposite happens of what people trying to suppress the truth.
Speaker 1:Many of us are fortunate enough to not be under persecution, but there's parts of the world that it seems like in every generation that Christians are under persecution, and the persecution rises and falls. You mentioned some of it, Steve. That happened and this was literally fulfilled in the book of Acts. But even afterwards, starting with the emperor Nero in the mid-60s AD and going for the next 200, 250 years, it was illegal to be a Christian, even a capital offense. That's where many of these things were fulfilled in those eras, because it seemed to be in different times and different places over church history that sometimes Christians have it easy and sometimes Christians have it hard.
Speaker 1:There's times where, for no more nor less than naming the name of Christ, that missionaries are martyred, people are tried, families are separated, and each of us should be prepared. Even if we're not experiencing persecution now, each of us should be prepared for what would happen if somebody broke in or if they demanded. You know, will you name the name of Christ or deny him? I'm going to take your life if you give the wrong answer. What would I say? Or if they demanded, you know, will you name the name of Christ or deny him? I'm going to take your life. If you give the wrong answer, what would I say? Or if they passed a law that said that Christians are illegal, then what would I do? Each of us should be prepared for that and teach our children to be prepared, because there are times where these things happen, Persecution happens. Where these things happen, Persecution happens. Steve, over the years, what has happened to churches when persecution happens? Does it destroy the church or strengthen the church?
Speaker 2:It generally strengthens it. The Christian family pulls together. Now in many cases they go what's known as going underground, meaning that they meet in secret places where the government doesn't know that they're meeting, and they go to different areas and different places, but in general it's strengthened, because who is it that they go to whenever this persecution comes along? It's to God, so it generally strengthens their faith and strengthens the body of Christ that are in those areas of when persecution happens.
Speaker 1:I think the immediate context here was the apostles that he was talking to when he said you'll be hauled before officials, but don't worry, the Holy Spirit will be with you. I think that's a promise, even though it may or may not speak to us directly. I think we could hold on to that, simply because God speaks to His children and God protects His children. I mean, there's Christians that are martyred in every generation, but God uses that and he uses it to further His kingdom. We should never be afraid of what man can do to us. We should be afraid of what the one could do to us that could take our soul. As long as our soul is in Christ, then no one can take that and we can rest assured that if our lives were at stake, god would give us the power at that time and God would give us the strength at that time to stay faithful to him. If we ask ourselves the question about verse 10, though it has gotten different answers over the years it says the gospel must first be preached to all the nations and again, we're not holding that to be some sort of a criteria for end times. There's some people that we think falsely held that to be well. If we finally get the word out to the last unreached people group, then Jesus will come, and that our labor and efforts are going to expedite his return. I don't think that's what that's saying here. I think he's merely just saying what it says that during the life of the apostles there's going to be wars, you might be arrested, but the gospel is going to go out to all the nations.
Speaker 1:This passage and similar ones are the basis for missions. Some churches have in the past have thought well, the apostles did that, the apostles got it to all the nations. But I submit, steve, that isn't it true that every generation has to work at getting the gospel out to the ends of the earth? Because even if a place had the gospel, the next generation comes along might not have it. Isn't it true that every generation has the challenge of getting the gospel out to its immediate area and to the ends of the earth?
Speaker 2:Not only the challenge but the responsibility. It is a commandment that has been given to us from Jesus that says go out and make disciples and teach them in my name, glenn. It's our responsibility to pass it down to the next generation and we need to tell them at that time it's your responsibility to pass it down to your next generation.
Speaker 1:Over in the epistles, the apostle Paul makes the illustration of the church as a body and he says some people are hands, some people are feet, some people are the eyes. If we take that analogy and apply it to missions, how can each of us play a part in getting the missions out? In his example? Some people are the unseemly parts, he says in the old King James. Some of us are gifted with the ability to speak and to go out and talk to people and be upfront with people and to go to ends of the earth. Some people are gifted with staying home and doing other things. How could each of us play a part in getting the gospel to the ends of the earth?
Speaker 2:Just talking to people and in conversations that we have with them, letting them know what the gospel is, sharing our testimony with them, sharing how God has affected our lives or changed our lives, and through even just living our lives, that is a way that we can show and spread who Jesus is, what he has done, and that they can have the promise of eternal life as well, just through us living our life.
Speaker 1:Everyone in the sound of my voice can pray for missions and missionaries and that's one of the greatest things they would need. For our pastors, the people that are trying to get the gospel out in our immediate area, they would all need prayer. Some of them need people with some shoes that can go out and do some walking and turn it into shoe leather. Others are gifted with the ability to finance these things and give. Each of us can play a part in getting the gospel to the ends of the earth, and verses like this one are ones that are from our Lord here that tell us it is all our responsibility to get the gospel out to the ends of the earth. And verses like this one are ones that are from our Lord here that tell us it is all our responsibility to get the gospel out to the ends of the earth. And verse 11 says that when the apostles were arrested, the Holy Spirit would speak through them. Therefore, the apostles' words were the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. When we see the apostles speaking, then this is the place where it says that speech was inspired Right here. The Holy Spirit will speak through you. Well, the Holy Spirit is God. So when Paul and Peter and the other apostles went out and spoke and wrote letters, they were speaking the very words of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that's what this passage is saying.
Speaker 1:Then, in verse 12 and 13, they speak of a time when Christians were persecuted and, as we said before, starting in the mid-60s, the Roman Emperor Nero blamed the burning of Rome on Christians. He needed a scapegoat and he blamed the Christians. From then until approximately 313 AD, it was illegal to be a Christian. Not just illegal, but a capital offense. The very things that he mentions here in Mark 13 happened when he said the family members would betray family members. Fathers would betray family members, children their parents. This happened in the Roman Empire. Under the persecutions, christians were fed to the lions, they were used as sport, they were executed for no more nor less than naming the name of Christ. Steve. In the middle of verse 13, we have this verse that says he who endures to the end or stands firm to the end will be saved. What is it talking about there? Is it talking about salvation or some other kind of being saved?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think it's talking about eternal salvation, because in the context here he's talking about people that are already saved, that are being persecuted because they're believers in Jesus Christ. The salvation part has already been settled, they've been justified. I think this is just simply saying that the one who endures through these particular times, that they're going to be saved out of the particular persecution of what they're undergoing at the time. Again, use the example of Peter. Peter hauled before the Sanhedrin and told you've got to stop doing what you're doing, and he says no and tells them why, stands firm on his conviction of Jesus Christ, they let him go. That's just one example I gave, but I think it's talking about that. It's not talking about eternal salvation. These people are already saved. From that standpoint, Right, exactly.
Speaker 1:The Gospels in the rest of the New Testament make it explicitly clear that we are not saved by doing works. This passage in Mark 13 is talking about wars and tribulations and persecutions. If he were to be saying that enduring through tribulations is what saves your soul, then that's a work salvation and that cuts against every grain of everything that's mentioned in the rest of the New Testament. He's merely saying that there's going to come hard times and those that make it through the end are the ones that's going to live, because the and those that make it through the end are the ones that's going to live, because the word saved is used more than one sense in the New Testament.
Speaker 1:James 5.15 talks about people being saved, but it's saved from sickness. So there's more than one sense to this. He just means that you'll be saved through the persecutions that are going to come. Again, this entire section is Jesus speaking about these multiple questions that were asked, and we're given a summary here, starting in verse 14,. We would hold that this is the sign of the great tribulation period and we'll point that out as we read this. Steve, can you read from verse 14 down to verse 20?.
Speaker 2:But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be, let the reader understand. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, the one who is on the housetop must not go down or go in to get anything out of his house, and the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days. But pray that it may not happen in the winter, for those days will be a time of tribulation such as not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will. Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect whom he chose, he shortened the days With this.
Speaker 1:it starts off with something called the abomination of desolation. Steve, what is the abomination of desolation?
Speaker 2:This is where we can look over in Matthew, and Matthew adds a little bit to it. He says the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel that is the reference here that is mentioned in Mark as well, and in Daniel it talks about this person at the time who has come on scene. He has made an agreement with the Jewish people and in the middle of that agreement he does changes to it and he puts up an image of himself. Daniel, it says in the holy place.
Speaker 2:Well, that's in the temple itself. There's a foreshadowing event of this that took place before the birth of Christ, from a Greek ruler called Antiochus Epiphanes. He actually did put up an image of himself in the temple at that time. A revolt from the Jewish family of the Maccabees came about from that, but that was a shadow of what was going to happen in the end times. I bring that up because what Jesus is speaking about here can't be that event that happened with Antiochus Epiphanes, because that was before he was even born, but it's an example of what will happen in the future at some point.
Speaker 1:Antiochus Epiphanes was, more properly, antiochus IV, as you said. This was roughly 200 years prior to Christ. Here he was a partial fulfillment I guess we could call it of the Daniel passage, a shadow or a foreshadow of the true Antichrist that's coming in the latter days. Antiochus Epiphanes hated the Jews. He tried to destroy them. He killed 80,000 Jews with his armies. He sacrificed a pig on the altar in Jerusalem. He extinguished the lamp that was supposed to stay ever burning inside the holy place and he poured pig soup all over the scrolls of Moses that had the Mosaic law. He did his best to completely desecrate the temple. Again, this was well before Jesus spoke these words in Mark, chapter 13. He specifically mentions here, though, when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be, the parallel passage in Matthew specifically mentions spoken of by Daniel. Well, daniel 9.27, daniel 11.31, and Daniel 12.11 specifically mention the abomination of desolation, or the abomination that makes desolate, and he makes it rather clear that something abominable will be set up in the temple and cause a stopping of regular sacrifices. The passage here that we just read, starting in verse 14 and going further, the abomination of desolation, is a signal to run for the hills. He had this passage, verse 15, the one who's on the housetop don't go down or get anything out of the house, run for the hills. And the one who's in the field, don't turn back, just run. So it's a signal that something is about to happen, one of the reasons why we would hold that this is yet future again. First of all, it says, spoken of by Daniel, daniel specifically says this is in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel's 70 weeks. That's one clue. The other one is why it cannot be the events of 70 AD. If you remember, the Roman army came in in 70 AD and they did indeed tear down the temple and have a sacrifice on the temple mount. The problem is the timing doesn't fit, because here in these verses Mark chapter 13, verses 14, 15, 16, the abomination is a signal that something is about to happen and you still have time to go run away In 70 AD.
Speaker 1:We have to understand the sequence of what happened. First of all, there was a Roman army of 48,000 people, laid siege to the city for a period of months, starved them out. They finally broke down the walls. It took another days to weeks to fight their way through the city to get to the temple. There were Jews that were hiding in the temple, that had barricaded themselves in the temple. It took another period of time to break through the barricades to get into the temple, slaughter all those people. It took even more time to tear the temple down stone by stone.
Speaker 1:At that point, after the battle was all over, and 100,000 people were slaughtered. Then they desecrated and did the pig sacrifice on the Temple Mount, not in the holy place. The holy place was a room that had already been torn down by then. So the events of 70 AD do not fit in this, because he's clearly saying hey, when you see this abomination set up in the holy place as spoken of by Daniel, where it ought not be run, well, in 70, they'd already been all killed by the time that happened. So, steve, it just doesn't fit. If we just do a careful verse-by-verse explanation of the passage.
Speaker 2:To bolster your case that you just made, glenn. In verse 19, jesus ties that time to something that's going to happen in the future. In 19, he says for those days will be a time of tribulation. Such has not occurred since the beginning of creation, which God created until now, and never will. He ties those events that previously here the abomination of desolation everybody should flee whenever they see that happen to a time frame of tribulation that has not happened any time since the creation and will never happen again. Well, we have seen progressive tribulation that has come on the Jewish people in particular well past the first century. The most prominent one is probably in the 20th century. That happened which actually led to them coming back and having their own Jewish nation again in Israel, in the land of Israel. So I think that's an addition to the case that Judas made, that this time of abomination of desolation was not in the first century or couldn't have been then.
Speaker 1:Even back in the Bible times. Yes, it's true, the Romans came in in 70 AD and destroyed the temple and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. It was very horrible. People were starving and cannibalism happened. It was very, very severe. But that was not the end of the Romans and the Jews. There was another war 40 years later with the Romans and the Jews, and another war even after that, years later, with the Romans and the Jews, and another war even after that, the Bar Kokhba battle in 132 AD. The Romans came in and killed more Jews in 132 AD in Bar Kokhba than they did in 70 AD in Jerusalem. There were more Jews killed by the Romans later than there was in 70 AD, the Romans later than there was in 70 AD.
Speaker 1:The 70 AD is brought up so many times simply because it kind of sort of kind of fits the timing here. But again, if we've said, if we just look at it in detail we'll see it doesn't really fit, because there were more Jews killed in 132 AD. There were more Jews killed by the Germans in the 1940s than there ever were in any of the ancient times, and this specifically says that it's going to be the worst that's ever occurred in the history of mankind. We just have to take the text for what it says. Therefore, this passage is talking about exactly what it says. The abomination of desolation, as spoken of by Daniel, will be an Antichrist in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel, the middle of the Great Tribulation period, the first half of which the Antichrist will set up a peace agreement. It'll be a false peace, because suddenly he's going to set up an image inside of a temple that's going to be a signal for all the Christians and all the believers in Christ to run, because the Great Tribulation is about to happen.
Speaker 2:Steve, that's just a tremendous time and it's wonderful that he gave us the instructions here to be careful and watch out for that it is From the Old Testament even into the New Testament, God has been faithful to let people know what is going to happen in the future. Jesus is doing just that.
Speaker 1:Lest we have any doubts. Lastly, in verse 20, quote Unless the Lord shortened those days, no life would be saved. The King James Version says no flesh would be saved, esv, no human being would be saved. So it's very clearly broadening it well beyond just the Jews in the one city of Jerusalem in the first century. We're going to pull it to the curb there. For now we're still in the middle of this wonderful Olivet Discourse. There's more to it, because next time we're going to see about the end of the age, jesus' second coming, and the end of the great tribulation period, as always.
Speaker 2:thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
