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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Richard Walton

Anarchy

And how frequently anarchy comes on the heels of the good times.

So it must have been 1 beautiful springtime morning in the city of Jerusalem.

The city was awash in color and laughter.

Sons and daughters of Israel coming home for Passover.

Not just the rabbis, the priests in their beautiful gowns symbolizing so much of what was important to the Jewish faith, the blue border of the law, The beautiful white linen symbolizing purity.

Mixing among them are the clank and glamour of the Roman elements of the Roman Frexus Legion which have come down from Syria.

Because more often than not on Passover, the Jews begin to dream of being free.

And more than once, the legions have had to wade into Jerusalem with their pilliums and their viridums and their short swords and in a bloodbath restore order.

But this Passover, it seems that something will be different.

And there's a small group of men clustered on the Mount of Olives, and they're looking out towards 1 of the wonders of the ancient world.

Something that every young Jew can look at and feel a swell of pride.

Because there in beautiful marble, there for all time and space is a monument on Temple Mount to the 1 true God.

And how many hundreds of years and millennia of triumph and failure of so often wanting to do good for the Lord and most often failing?

These young men are gathered around another young man, a teacher, a rabbi.

They look out at that beautiful, beautiful building and their hearts swell with pride.

They say, look, teacher, rabbi and I are rabbi, look at that beautiful building.

History has not recorded for us the look on Jesus' face as He looks out of that building and His mind and His heart turn as only divinity can to a future that only He can see.

And he doesn't see that building, 1 beautiful silk white stone piled upon another.

He sees just ruin and flames and pain and destruction.

And in response to the question, do you see all these things?

Join me if you would, Matthew 24, verse 2.

In response to his disciples' questions, he says, Truly I tell you, not 1 stone here will be left on another.

In a time of high prosperity, following the triumphal entry where thousands gathered to cheer the man they thought might be able to free them from Roman oppression, that very man looks into a future only he can see and he describes a world in terror.

So as Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples ask him, they say, Rabbi, Teacher, you've told us of this bleak future, of this anarchy.

What is the sign of these things and how will we know what to look for to see the end of the age and the sign of your coming?

Jesus answers and says, be careful don't let anyone deceive you.

You will hear of wars, verse 6, and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.

Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

What are 2 things we learn about anarchy from this story?

Number 1, it always follows the best of times.

It's inevitable, it's happened throughout history.

What's the second thing we learn from the words of the Lord himself.

Because Jesus describes a world that through many ages, mankind has sadly had to see.

Verse 7, nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

All these things are the beginning of, now how many people here have a King James Version?

This is a familiar passage to most of us.

Most of us could probably recite it from memory, but for a moment, let's drill down and ask ourselves if what is traditionally thought to be the best, the most literal interpretation of Holy Scripture really got this 1 right, or if the old English translators decided to gloss over a very important concept that Christ is returning to yet again to make sure that his audience gets the point.

What comes next in your version, brother?

Folk, for once, the NIV got it more right than the King James Version did.

What is the Greek word that is used, the original Greek word that is used to describe what's going on and what the Lord is trying to communicate?

It literally describes, it's used either to describe indescribable pain, I'm sure some of you women will agree with that.

It's most often used to describe the beginning of childbirth of the pain that comes from bringing another human being into the world.

What are some things that we gather from the Lord's use of this very descriptive word?

All of this, nation rising against nation, famines, earthquakes in various places, all of this anarchy is not the end.

And It is the beginning of something that ultimately turns out very beautiful for those involved.

It's the beginning of something brand new.

In case you didn't get it, when he says very explicitly, the end is still to come.

He then lists specific things, types of anarchy, wars, earthquakes, famines, in many different places but this isn't it.

This is the beginning, not of sorrows but of childbirth, of an incredibly painful process that leads to something new.

And so our story this morning begins at the end and also at the beginning.

Begins at the very end of Christ's life, the beginning of a promise of something new, something to come, something that will follow on anarchy, but it will, anarchy itself will not be the sign of the end.

The Lord goes on in verse 15, He says, Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by who?

By Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, whoever reads let him hear.

So in this moment at the very end of his life, the Lord is pointing us back to 1 of the great heroes, 1 of the great giants of the Jewish faith, of Jewish belief, 1 of the few men against whom there is not 1 recorded sin in the entire Bible, even when it would have served him better, even when he could have justified doing less than what he knew to be right.

Here's 1 of the few guys that scripture says, no matter what, even if it was for the greater good, even if it was for his own good, if it was for the good of his people, he didn't do it if it broke the faith that he had in his heart.

The Lord points us back to the abomination of desolation, and scholars have struggled with understanding this particular reference because it's not an easy 1 to understand.

The word that is used in the Septuagint and is translated here is, now, Sukkot is used over a hundred times through the Old Testament.

It is sometimes used to describe various types of sexual aberration.

For those of you that take notes and want to look this stuff up later and make sure I'm not just a lawyer up here running my mouth, take a look at Leviticus 18.22 and 18.29-30.

These are each instances in which this particular Hebrew word is used, sikos.

That being said, it is most often used to refer to idolatry.

It is most often used to refer to idolatry, frequently very, very bad idolatry, some of the worst type of idolatry you can imagine.

For instance, the standard garden variety idolatry that doesn't involve, for instance, murdering children.

You can find examples of that in Deuteronomy 7.25, 13.6-16, Deuteronomy 17.2-5, Deuteronomy 18.9-12, Deuteronomy 27.15, and Deuteronomy 32.16.

Deuteronomy 18, 9-12, Deuteronomy 27, 15, and Deuteronomy 32, verse 16.

Those are all examples, just in 1 book, of Sukkot being used to refer to the abomination of idolatry.

It's a very primitive root in the Hebrew language.

It's derived from 1 that is used to describe just the most unspeakable types of horrible human behavior 1 can think of.

I don't think you can imagine human behavior much worse than taking your little baby son or daughter just a few months old and putting them on the arms of a god called Moloch and watching as that young child is burned alive because Moloch was a hollow bronze statue with an eagle-like beak, 2 hands standing out waiting to receive the sacrifice.

And the sacrifice that Moloch wanted was infant children.

And parents would willingly go up and place their child on the arms of this abomination in the mistaken belief that they could somehow garner favor with this God that they worshipped.

If you'd like to see a reference to that, you will find it in 1 Kings 11.7 and 2 Kings 23.13.

An example of Moloch being used, sadly, takes us back to the gentleman who is responsible for that temple being on that mount that Jesus is looking at and testifying to.

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Anarchy

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