Mark 13:24 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 13:24

Comments

We have seen the first mountain peak, the destruction of Jerusalem, but now look, we are onto the second. ‘In those days’ – towards the very end of the age – ‘after that tribulation’ – when everybody will be against God’s people, just as they were against the early Christians, before the destruction of Jerusalem – ‘the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.’ There will be astonishing cosmic disturbances, and it will be unmistakable to Christians. So there is a description of the very end of time. There will be trouble and tribulation, especially for the church. The world will turn against the church, as we see today in a measure. During the gospel age the wars have got worse; the threats have got worse; the opposition to Christians has got worse. They are now legalising sin, and making it criminal to be a Christian, and to stand for the morality of the Bible.

Application

Then come the unmistakable signs: the cosmic disturbances. Before Christ returns there will be signs given by God for all to see, not merciful signs as the healings done by Christ during his time on earth, but fearful indications of God’s anger with the world and impending judgment. The most stable objects that men know and which they trust in will begin to fail, for the world that was created as a home for man is about to be taken from him since he proves himself unworthy of it. In his rejection of God man looks for other stable things that he can put his trust on, and fixes on the most enduring things he can find in this material world. God will therefore touch the very things that he has made his idols. This will take place just before Christ returns.

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Mark 13:24 Commentary and Bible Study