Recreate Church, Pastor Michael Shockley—Service, Sunday, May 5, 2024

ReCreate Church’s Podcast

Simple Faith for a Complex World.

Today, Pastor Michael is drilling down on the complexities of modern life. We like complexity until it becomes overwhelming, but it is a real part of modern day-to-day living.

God did not make a world that was overly complex. He put people in a situation that was pretty idyllic and low-key. But we, starting with Adam and Eve, pretty much messed that one up! Now more than ever, we wish for a simple life, that world that God created before disease, sickness, and bad fortune. But:

Good news!

The same God who created that simple life is going to bring it back. But we’re in the messy middle right now, and it’s a struggle. So lets jump into the study:

We’re with Jesus in this lesson from the book of Mark, where He talks about the end times. “Let the reader understand” is important in this passage, probably inserted by the author Mark for future generations. Herein, they’re talking about the Abomination of Desolation, which is when someone in authority reaches the end of the sacrifices in the temple in an abominable way, causing desolation, happening in the middle of a covenant. This prophecy has three fulfillments to it. Two are partial and temporary, and one is complete and forever.

In the first fulfillment, Antiochus, a truly evil man, entered an altar and sacrificed a pig in their temple, defiling it utterly. Eventually, the temple was cleaned and restored. When Jesus arrived, the temple was humming along. Hannukah came about during this restoration, an interesting historical fact. The second fulfillment, also partial, occurred during Roman times. Revolts were now occurring against the Romans, and so in marches the Roman army right into Jerusalem, and they knocked down the temple, disrupting the sacrifices, which is still not occurring to this day.

The ultimate fulfillment is the third one, the AntiChrist, who will broker the seven-year covenant. Seemingly, a peace treaty will be made with Israel and its neighbors, and the temple will be rebuilt. He will then break that covenant at the halfway mark and will defile the temple yet again.

A complex world calls for a simple faith—a faith that is thought out, reasoned through, and returns to simplicity. We’re in the middle, and it can be overwhelming, but God will make it simple again!

You CAN trust God!

(CSB Bible Notes) 13:14 The abomination of desolation is drawn from Dn 9:27; 11:31; 12:11 (cp. Mt 24:15) and was used to describe the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC (see the apocryphal book 1Macc 1:54). Jesus’s reference may be to some event prior to AD 70 or to the “man of lawlessness” (2Th 2:3-10; cp. Rv 13:1-10,14-15). Mark did not identify the location for standing where it should not be, but Matthew (Mt 24:15) said “in the holy place,” meaning the temple’s sanctuary (cp. 2Th 2:4).

Verses can be found in Mark 13: 14 - 23.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.