Written by H.B. Charles, Jr. |
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
We refuse to get caught up in the hoopla of the experts, not because we are climate deniers. We believe the words of Jesus. Heaven and earth will pass away. Revelation 21:1 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”

When I was young, there was a “psychic” whose commercials regularly played on TV. Miss Cleo gave assurances she could reveal your future over the phone. There were clips of phone sessions to prove her assertions. Then she would say in a Jamaican accent, “Call me now!” The caption read: “First 3 minutes of each call free. Must be 18. For Entertainment Only.”
Many make bold predictions about the future. Their prognostications are only useful for entertainment. Jesus is not a part of that list. You can live with confidence in what Jesus says about the future. That’s the message of Mark 13:28-31.
It was Wednesday of Passion Week—Jesus’ last visit to the temple in Jerusalem. As he departed, he predicted the temple would be destroyed. Later, on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John, and Andrewasked follow-up questions. Mark 13:4 says: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished.”

“These things” refer to the near event of the temple’s destruction.
“All these things” refer to the far event of the Lord’s return.

Matthew 24:3 clarifies the distinction: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age.”
Mark 13:5-37 records the Lord’s response. It is called the Olivet Discourse. The chapter is filled with prophetic predictions. Some Bible teachers believe these predictions are about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. A plain reading of the chapter makes it evident that Jesus is talking about his second coming at the end of the age.
Some conclusions about this chapter are more about defending Jesus than accurate interpretation. Jesus is not Miss Cleo. His claims do not need to be defended. You can live with confidence in what Jesus says about the future. What is the basis of your hope for the future? Mark 13:28-31 gives four reasons to live confidently in what Jesus says about the future.
The Practical Wisdom of Jesus
Verses 26-27 predict the second coming: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” Jesus is coming again definitely, imminently, bodily, visibly, gloriously, triumphantly, and unexpectantly.
How should we respond to this glorious truth? Jesus does not give a radical or fanatical end-time strategy. He teaches a simple lesson of practical wisdom. Verse 28 says, “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.”
“Learn” is an imperative, not a suggestion. The Lord commands the disciples to master the lesson he teaches from the fig tree. The call to learn is what it means to be a disciple. Matthew 28:20 tells us to teach disciples to observe all that he has commanded us. We must accept what Jesus says as true and apply it to our lives.
The lesson is about the coming of Christ and the end of the age. There are three schools of eschatology: premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. Many Christians subscribe to “pan-millennialism”—it will all pan out in the end. We claim to be on the welcoming committee, not the planning committee. But the coming of Christ is not a subject to leave for theologians to debate. Jesus commands you to learn this subject, which means you can learn this subject.
Verse 28 says, “From the fig tree learn its lesson.” “Lesson” is the Greek word for “parable.” The word means “to toss alongside.” Jesus often taught by tossing a common reality alongside spiritual truth. Many of the parables are stories. Some are simple analogies. This is what we have in the lesson of the fig tree. Most of the trees in Jerusalem were evergreen. Figs trees were deciduous. They bud, bloom, fade, and fall with the passing of the seasons. This changing condition made the fig tree a fitting parable: “As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is coming.”
In the spring, the fig tree branches become “tender” as they fill with sap. Then green leaves began to sprout. When the disciples saw this, they knew what it meant. They did not need expertise in horticulture. Tender branches and growing leaves meant summer is coming.
In Mark 11, Jesus cursed a fig tree with leaves but no fruit. It was a symbol of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus uses the fig tree to illustrate a different truth here. The fig tree does not represent Israel. It is just a blossoming fig tree that indicates summer is coming. Shakespeare said there were “sermons in stones.” The Lord is always teaching us something. Don’t miss the spiritual lessons in practical things.
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Alcohol is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States behind number two, tobacco, and number one, poor diet combined with physical inactivity. How should Christians respond to this situation? Temperance has been and will continue to be a topic of debate, but the ministry of the church is to teach people to be filled with the Spirit through redemption by Christ.

Physician and founding-father Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) published An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors on the Human Body, 1790. The pamphlet brought before the public several problems associated with drinking distilled spirits. As a doctor, Rush presented conclusions made from his observations of the damage spirits can cause the liver, stomach, digestion, physical appearance, and muscle tissue. His experience dealing with alcoholism in the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia included not only treatment of its physical but also neurological aspects, and he pointed out the associated problems it caused for personal finances, family, and society. Much of what he said over two-hundred years ago could be dittoed today, however, Rush was not an alcohol abolitionist but instead proposed temperance in the sense of moderation. Doctor Rush’s Inquiry appealed to readers to consider the negative side of what they drank and his diagram “A Moral and Physical Thermometer” at the end of Inquiry (see at the end of this article) was intended to encourage individuals to modify their practices by showing them graphically the dangers of intemperance. He was concerned too that the increased availability of ardent spirits for social get-togethers often led to inebriation, and in the long term, dependency. Physician Rush believed that if someone wanted to drink beverages with alcohol, fermented juices such as apple cider and punches with minimal levels of alcohol were better than spirits, beer, and wine, but the best refreshment was made of vinegar, water, and molasses. Vinegar’s ability to kill some micro-organisms was observed with microscopes in the seventeenth century and it may have been seen as a disinfecting substitute for alcohol.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the abuse of alcoholic beverages was a horrendous problem that displayed itself with inebriated individuals wandering streets, filling jails, and being treated by doctors. It was not uncommon for church services to be interrupted by inebriates wandering into sanctuaries. On the one hand, they were in the best place they could be to hear about Christ, but on the other hand, it was hard to do things decently and in order with lyrics filling the air such as “Let us drink and be merry, dance and joke and rejoice, with claret and sherry.” Adding to the problem was employers encouraged workers to drink. Believe it or not during industrial expansion in the nineteenth century, bosses offered free shots of whiskey to cajole workers to stay at their jobs till the end of the day. Machinery and drink do not mix, and such a practice undoubtedly caused injuries and death.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) in its report on the state of religion in 1807 commented that it deplored “in many parts, debasing intemperance in the use of ardent spirits” (p. 383). In 1811 the General Assembly thanked Benjamin Rush for his donation of 1000 copies of Inquiry that were “divided among the members of the Assembly in order to be distributed in their congregations” (467). Note that Rush had kept his pamphlet in print for twenty-one years as intemperance continued to be a problem. The next year the Assembly adopted the report of a committee appointed the previous year which encouraged ministers “to deliver public discourses…on the sin and mischiefs of intemperate drinking” and warned congregants of “those habits and indulgences which may tend to produce it.” Further, church sessions needed to be vigilant to give private warning or public censures because intemperance is “so disgraceful to the Christian name,” the distribution of temperance tracts was encouraged and encouragement was given to efforts for reducing in communities “the number of taverns and other places vending liquors” (510-11). In 1818, an action prompted by overture from the Presbytery of New Brunswick was adopted which recommended that ministers and their flocks influence “forming associations for the suppression of vice and the encouragement of good morals” and that “ministers, elders, and deacons…refrain from offering ardent spirits to those who may visit them at their respective houses, except in extraordinary cases” (684). Finally, the same Assembly recommended…
…to the officers and members of our Church to abstain even from the common use of ardent spirits. Such a voluntary privation as this, with its motives publicly avowed will not be without its effect in cautioning our fellow Christians and fellow citizens against the encroachment of intoxication; and we have the more confidence in recommending this course as it has already been tried with success in several sections of our Church (690).
Those who have been reading Presbyterians of the Past for some time will remember that some ministers in biographies were disciplined for intemperance.
The Civil War brought increased problems with alcoholism. The masses of soldiers gathered on battlefields and in forts with hours of idleness awaiting the next engagement often drank to fill the time as they played games of chance. The problem of inebriated soldiers was addressed in sermons by chaplains along with tracts written by pastors and distributed through religious publishers. Alcohol dependency was a significant problem after the Civil War ended and some temperance groups were organized specifically to help veterans.
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The reality of the magnitude of the devastation is shocking. It is utter devastation. You can see all the pictures and videos online, but it is completely different to drive through it, to live in it. Words cannot describe how bad it is. But the response of the Christian community, of the church, has been a beacon of light. A very large portion, from what I can tell, of the relief work has come from private, mostly faith-based organizations.

Paul Maurer was on the plane back from the Fourth Lausanne Congress in South Korea when he began getting texts from work and home: a category 4 hurricane named Helene was plowing across the eastern United States, heading right for his home and the college he leads in the Asheville area.
By the time Maurer landed Friday evening in Charlotte, North Carolina, Helene’s 140 mph winds and heavy rain had killed hundreds of people, destroyed towns, and caused landslides in multiple states.
At Montreat College, where Maurer is president, one of the small mountain streams that runs through campus had become a raging river.
“The lower level of our gym became part of the river,” he said. “Over five feet of water was running through the fitness center, the offices, and the classrooms.”
The students were safe in the dorms but didn’t have electricity or running water. Faculty and staff were at home, but Maurer didn’t know if they were OK and he couldn’t ask—there was no cell service.
“I grew up and lived in tornado areas, and I lived in California in earthquake areas, but I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude,” he said. “It is surreal.”
The Gospel Coalition asked Maurer if his faculty and staff made it, what he did with the hundreds of students still on campus, and how he saw God at work through it all.
Was anyone who worked at Montreat killed or injured?
As far as we know, no one died, and I’m not aware of any serious injuries. We have employees who lost their homes and all their earthly possessions. That is devastation, and that is real. But God protected our people.
I tried to drive home Friday evening but was stopped 20 miles from home by an interstate closure and state troopers who said there were no open roads into western North Carolina. I drove two hours back to Charlotte, where there were only a few hotel rooms left.
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