Class Notes: 1/28/2015

Mark 13:12- Mark 13:19; Believers will face adversity until Jesus returns

In our study of Mark Jesus is preparing His disciples for the opposition they will face in the devil's world.

Mark 13:12; Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise against parents and have them put to death.

This verse describes the intensity of the opposition in terms of the believer's relationships with family members.

The family was big part of Jewish life so we see here that when a person began to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ rather than the Jewish Levitical ritual it caused a lot if dissention within the family and some turned on believers because of emotionalism and arrogance.

Paul and the other thought police who were going around and capturing and killing believers in Jesus Christ exacerbated this. Acts 9:1-2;

Thousands of people including many Christians are being martyred every year in the Islamic holocaust that is happening around the world right now and almost nothing is being done about it. It hardly ever makes the news because it seems so far away that it can never happen here but it can and most likely will.

As negative volition becomes more and more pervasive it will also happen here. The purveyors of the public lie will always get around to opposing teaching about Jesus because Jesus is truth and the public lie always rejects truth.

When the communists took over in Russia, China, and Korea they brainwashed the children to accuse their parents in "peoples courts" and the parents were arrested and hauled off to prison and often killed for their beliefs. In China twenty million people died this way.

Jesus uses the family to illustrate human ties. The idea is that the opposition to teaching the Gospel and God's word would be so great and so intense that it would destroy even the strongest of human ties.

When a believer becomes faithful to the truth he will often be opposed by his own family. Just as soon as you fall in love with the Lord Jesus Christ through learning knowing the Word and His doctrine someone in your family will oppose you.

If those who are in power in our country at this time are able to maintain their influence this will also happen here because of their complete rejection of the divine establishment principles of freedom that are in God's Word and in the constitution.

This is why the trampling of the constitution that is happening at this time is so troubling to those who understand the consequences of having people in power who have rejected the principles of freedom that are found exclusively in God's Word.

Mark 13:13; "Everyone will hate you because of my name (Jesus Christ)."
This is a future passive, and the future tense is linear and means that believers will be hated down through the ages but this only occurs when they take a stand for Jesus' name (the truth of God's Word).

There are many believers who are not hated because they don't care about truth and there are many believers who are not hated because they cannot be differentiated from unbelievers by what they say and do.

Only the believers who take a stand for Jesus will be hated. Standing for Jesus means standing for Divine Establishment, the Gospel, and His Word ("The Faith" aka "Bible Doctrine") that is Jesus. John 1:1,14;

Believers with doctrine must stand for and speak the truth regardless of the threat of adverse personal consequences.

Mark 13:13b; "But the one who endures to the end (of the Tribulation) will be saved." The end here is the end of the age. Jesus was speaking in the Jewish Age and the Tribulation is the end of the Jewish Age.

This has nothing to do with eternal salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Net note 21

This is a reference to the fact that this opposition will be very concentrated in the Tribulation but it is possible to physically survive and some will because God keeps His promises. Mark 13:20;

Jesus was speaking in the Age of Israel. Remember that the Age of Israel came to a halt when Jesus sent God the Holy Spirit 50 days after He had completed His mission with the cross, followed by His burial, resurrection, ascension and session.

We are now in the Church Age that will be suddenly terminated with the exit resurrection or rapture of the Church at which point the Age of Israel will be resumed and completed with the Tribulation.

Jesus' return at the Second Advent terminates the Age of Israel. Enduring in the Tribulation until Christ returns to the earth at the end of the Tribulation is possible.

This has nothing to do with eternal salvation, it means to survive or to stay alive physically till Jesus returns at the end of the Tribulation.

What Jesus is saying is that the persecution will to continue down through the Church Age and through the Tribulation until the Second Advent.

When Jesus states this He is going to depart within 50 days. At that point He will be seated at the right hand of the Father and then He will return, and during all of the time between His departure and His return there will be normal pressures of life in the devil's world during the Church Age as well as supernatural, and extra natural persecution in the Tribulation.

But this opposition only occurs for those who love doctrine, those who learn doctrine, those who live by doctrine and those who take a stand for doctrine.

Mark 13:13; "will be saved" or more accurately " will be delivered" is a logical future tense. If you stick with God's Word it is logical that you will not only survive but you will survive with tranquility and happiness. Heb 12:2-3;

If you have doctrine in your stream of consciousness you can survive any kind of pressure with tranquility and happiness. But if you are operating on some system of human good such as self-righteousness, ritualism, or religion instead of doctrine you are going to fail and that will increase your unhappiness.

Without doctrine you cannot understand why the members of your own family who have doctrine are not as close to you as they were before. You should expect that there are going to be members in your family who do not understand you because without doctrine they cannot understand you.

Mark 13:14a;"But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader understand)"

This is the midpoint of the Tribulation where the alliance that was made between the Beast dictator of the revived Roman Empire who is the king of the west and the false prophet who is the ruler of Israel at the beginning of the Tribulation is terminated.


International religion reaches its peak during the Tribulation and at this point even infiltrates Israel. The abomination of desolation is an image of the Roman dictator that is set up in all places of worship throughout the world including the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

The Roman dictator commands a ten-nation confederation that will be revived in the territory that was previously occupied by old Roman Empire This Roman dictator will hold his empire together just like the Roman Empire was previously held together, with the idea that "Caesar is God!"

The way that people will recognize that Caesar is God is the same way they did in the ancient Roman Empire. An image of Caesar will be placed in every place of worship.

This includes the holy of holies of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem where the sacrifices will be terminated so that an image of the Roman dictator can be placed there because the Beast dictator of the Roman Empire has reneged on his deal with the false prophet, the dictator of the Jews.

He forces the Jews to accept his religion, and to demonstrate that they do accept it they are forced to place a statue of the Roman Beast dictator in the holy of holies of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

This is the statue is the abomination of desolation that was prophesied of by Daniel in Dan 9:27; Dan 11:31; Dan 12:11.

Mark 13:14b; "let the reader understand" is an imperative of command for believers to know what the prophecy means so they can be ready to implement it. "then those in Judea must flee to the mountains.'

When believers in Judea see the statue standing in the Jewish temple it is their signal to leave. It is a warning to every born again believer in southern Palestine, and Judea, to head for the mountains immediately and there is no time to do anything else.

We see from this that the PMA of Bible Doctrine is critical at all times because it provides us with the information we need to understand what to do so we can escape. Psa 119:105; 1Cor 10:13;

God's Word commands these people to flee to the mountains to get out of the way of the converging armies. We know exactly which mountains because Dan 11:41; tells us that those who flee to Ammon, Moab and Edom will be safe from the invading armies.

Mark 13:15-16; Jesus describes the urgency of the situation and the need to be able to get away as soon as possible. The verbs are in the imperative mood of command so it is a mandate for these believers to move out immediately.

v15 The roof was where they had their gardens and they had outside stairs so the idea is to come down them from the roof and leave, do not take the time to go into the house to get anything.

v16 The field refers to the people who are at work. Don't go to the house to pick up anything, leave for the mountains from work.

There comes a time when to survive you don't have time to think about it, you just have to move. In order to make the snap decision go to you have to have the proper information in your thinking already so that you are mentally prepared. If you have already thought about it in anticipation making the correct decision is easy.

If these people are going to survive they have leave without any delay. There is an unseen tsunami coming in the form of an army and if they are in its path they will be killed.

Mark 13:17; Even though it will be more difficult for those who are pregnant or with small children to travel they must go if they are going to survive.

Mark 13:18; This verse has a mandate for prayer that the event will not occur in the winter. The winter is the rainy season so some streams could be difficult to traverse.

The Jews will have 3 1/2 years to pray for this and in His prophecy Jesus personally mandates that they do so. This is a perfect example of the specificity of the prophecy for Israel and the determinism it describes.

In the Church Age there is no such specificity or determinism. Believers in the Church Age must personally determine their own response to historical events and make the appropriate application of doctrine to the situation under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

Mark 13:19; This will be the most difficult time in human history. Even worse than the previous attacks that have occurred including the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD. This was also prophesied in Dan 12:1;

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