When we read Matthew 24:6-8, we must not allow ourselves to be afraid. The wars and rumors of wars that Jesus mentioned were all a part of the downfall of Jerusalem (not a modern event) because of Judah’s covenant crimes against her God.

Like a Woman in Labor
As Jesus and His disciples left the temple mount Tuesday afternoon, memories of what just occurred were still ricocheting in their minds. Early that morning, Jesus had cursed a fig tree as a dramatic parabolic display of what would soon happen to Jerusalem. Then, after a brief encounter with the Pharisees where they challenged His authority in the temple, Jesus delivered three scathing parables describing, with increasing clarity, the covenantal catastrophe that will soon befall Old Testament Judah.
The Jews, while listening to their national epitaph, received His parables with about as much grace as a decapitated rattlesnake, still opening and closing its mouth, able and willing at a moment to strike. It was at this point Jesus challenged their authority, humiliating them in front of all of Jerusalem. First, by answering their trap-like questions. Second, by posing questions they could not answer. And third, by declaring 7 Deuteronomic woes upon the city, that would soon feel the full weight of God’s awesome wrath for their crimes against the covenant.
As the disciples were walking away from the city and the temple they adored, they must have been hoping they misunderstood Jesus’ words about the temple. But after pointing to the temple complex looming over them, they were struck with the piercing finality of His linguistic precision and clarity. The temple before them would be destroyed. Brick by brick would be torn apart. The city would be burned. And God’s redemption of sinful humanity would transition away from priests, temples, sacrifices, and feasts of Israel to a new and final era centered on Jesus Christ, our only hope for salvation.
With such seismic shifts about to break upon the landscape of redemption, is it any wonder the disciples wanted to know three specific things from their master and Lord? They wanted to know, 1) When the temple would be destroyed? 2) What signs would occur showing them its destruction was drawing near? And 3) Would its destruction signal the end of the Jewish age?
Last week, we saw Jesus tackling their second question first, giving them a few signs that the end of Jerusalem was coming. Jesus told them it would be like a woman whose labor pains increase with intensity as the delivery draws near (Matthew 24:8). So, in the same way, the signs Jesus gave them would increase in intensity until the city was destroyed. Last week, we saw the first sign Jesus gave, which was the rise of increasingly volatile false messiahs who would lead the nation into greater and greater ruin and disaster climaxing in their delivery over to Rome. Today, we will see the second sign, which is the dawn of iterative wars and rumors of future wars. But first, let us briefly remind ourselves about signs.
Reminder About Signs
The disciples are asking Jesus a question and expecting a meaningful response. They are looking for things that they will be able to see with their own two eyes and understand with the minds God has given them. They want to know things that they can be on the lookout for and not information about the end of the world.
I mention this as a cautionary reminder. Because as we read the text, our orientation must not be that Jesus is speaking directly to us, although, I do grant that the text speaks to us and teaches us by the Holy Spirit. But in this case, we must remember that this is a conversation among first-century disciples and their Lord. Jesus is speaking directly to the disciples, answering their specific questions about the temple and Jerusalem, and giving them real answers that would be meaningful to them in their lifetime. He simply is not looking past them and using this opportunity, to opine about twenty-first-century wars, tribulations, and late great planet earth style raptures. If you can make the text say that, you can twist it and manipulate it to say anything.
Here is the text we are going to be looking at today:

You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places, there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.—Matthew 24:6-8

The Pax Romana
When Jesus says: “you will be hearing” He does not mean twenty-first century Christians who are eavesdropping on His conversation will hear about rumors of upcoming wars. He means “you”, as in the disciples who are looking Him in the eyes as He is speaking will hear these things. The disciples were going to be hearing of wars and rumors of war, which is more important than you may realize. Why?
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Hope, for the Christian, is as firm as can be, and even our suffering can’t take it away. As Packer goes on to say, “Though the Christian life is regularly marked more by suffering than by triumph (1 Corinthians 4:8-13; 2 Corinthians 4:7-18; Acts 14:22), our hope is sure and our mood should be one of unquenchable confidence: we are on the victory side.” We are on the victory side not because we are overcomers but because Jesus, our hope, is the Overcomer.

The two disciples began the seven-mile walk home from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Despairing recent events, they didn’t notice the man joining their party until he began talking. Had they known him? They certainly had, though they were unaware at the moment. In an ironic twist, the topic of their home going discussion was now one of their carpool. The one whom they had hoped was the one to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21) was alive again. Their hope was not put to shame (Romans 5:5). But they couldn’t see that yet. Oh, how hope is often veiled by our own doubts!
It’s a common fear, this putting to shame of one’s hope. It is a fire easily extinguished by the wet blanket of the world’s disappointments. By definition, hope is something future-oriented, out beyond, something promised though not yet possessed. Anything out in the future is, of course, uncertain, and that uncertainty plays with our mind. The things we hope for (and hope in) can let us down. We’ve been there a thousand times, haven’t we? The hoped-for Christmas present never comes. The hoped-for spouse never asks you out. The hoped-for promotion never materializes. To grow up in this world is to grow up learning to deal with disappointment.
Hope, it seems, is a fickle thing. Perhaps it’s something better left alone. That’s why so many today seem to have none. Why bother? So cynicism reigns. Things might be okay later on, but don’t get your hopes up. Everything ultimately disappoints. Even death, that release into the great land beyond is now thought by so many as a great nothingness—a removal of sorts from all that matters, never subjecting one to pain again, nor, for that matter, to any other emotion. Culturally, our hope amounts to nothing. The great hope of the enlightenment, that we were progressing upwardly, soon to be far better versions of ourselves, is no longer enough. We aren’t progressing—the twentieth century proved that well enough—but now we’re barely even trying. We dull our fears with entertainment and erase our eternal hopes with something more instantly gratifying: another hit of sugar, another purchase from Amazon, another trip to the beach, anything short-lived because who has time for things to come one day? So credit card bills carry a never decreasing balance because someone has to foot the bill of our hopelessness.
The Emmaus road disciples would find a home in twenty-first-century America. Obviously, Jesus is dead, yet the world still spins. Death is imminent but better left unconsidered. Going home is the only option left. At least there’s comfort there as we wait out the rest of our days.
But as they walked, their new partner rebuked their lack of faith and spoke wonderful things to them from the Bible. He proved something, though they weren’t sure at the time what the point was. All they knew was that their hearts began to light up with something pushing them onward, a burning inside that restored the hope they thought they’d lost (Luke 24:32). They went home despairing a dead Jesus but on the way, they met a living savior.
Hope is born out of such things. It’s when our head is lowest and our hearts are dimmest that Jesus does his best work, even if that work has been there from the foundation of the world. It’s us that needs to see it, and it’s to us that Jesus comes, rebuking if he must, but still lovingly bearing with us as if we’re the only ones in the world. To him, we are. You, Christian, are his mission—the very reason he lived, died, and rose again. In his glory, he has all the time in the world for you. All the patience too, it seems.
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If you keep “glorifying God through faithful and clear communication of your text” as the goal of your preaching, then trimming down your sermon can become just another act of faithfulness and worship.

For me, the hardest part of preparing a teaching or sermon is figuring out what information to leave out. Cutting down a sermon is incredibly difficult. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that it is very hard to find actual guidance on how to trim down a sermon. There are dozens of great resources for how to write better sermons, how to outline, how to write sermon application. But I have found very little concrete guidance for how to discern what parts of a sermon to keep, and what to edit out.
The Problem of Over-stuffed Sermons
There is an unfortunate tendency to equate a good, Biblical sermon with how many details a preacher or teacher gives. This tendency leads to what I will call “over-stuffed” sermons. These are sermons that are Biblical, sound, but try to communicate too much information in the allotted time slot. Sermons that are over-stuffed end up becoming less clear to the congregation. Listeners spend so much time trying to keep track of the many details you are giving rather than meditating on the main point of the text.
Now, I want to make an important distinction before going on. As a Bible-teacher or preacher, you must go into a great level of detail in your analysis when preparing a sermon. In your Bible study leading up to a preaching or teaching, you must dig into any and all details contained in your text. You must cross-reference, outline, look up the original languages, make observation after observation, and more if you want to get to the meaning of the text you are teaching. However, the art of preaching is in discerning which details to actually present to your congregation in a Sunday morning sermon. In other words, when you go from your study to the pulpit, you must trim down your sermon to only the most important textual details. If you simply go up and preach your detailed Bible study notes, chances are you are preaching and over-stuffed sermon.
The Solution: Trim Down Your Sermon to the Essential Details
In my experience, sermon length is generally driven by how many details you end up communicating in your sermon. How many points and sub-points do you have? How many words do you define from the pulpit? What cross-references do you include? Historical anecdotes? Illustrations? Applications? Therefore, to trim down a sermon, you must discern which of these details are essential to communicate, and which are secondary. The essential details should end up in your final sermon. Secondary details, on the other hand, you can trim out of your sermon to fit your allotted time and to ensure your congregation does not get lost in an over-stuffed teaching.
This seems obvious so far. But the question is how do you trim down a sermon? How can you discern which details are essential and which are secondary? Most of the time when I have asked for guidance on trimming down a sermon, I have gotten some form of “there is an art to it” or “I’m not that great at it myself, so I’m a bad example.” While it is certainly difficult to make universal rules, there is a helpful process you can go through to at least help you discern what details are essential and which are not. The process is simple: go through each section, point, detail, or cross reference in the first draft of your manuscript, and ask the following four questions (in order):
1. Does this detail give information that is mostly repeated elsewhere in the sermon?
I call this the “redundancy” test. Repetition is important in communication, but if you go to 10 cross-references in a sermon which all make the same point, maybe you can cut 8-9 of those cross-references and save yourself (and your listeners) some time. If a sermon point, observation, or application is too similar to information previously given in your sermon, you should probably cut it. Redundant details are by definition secondary and non-essential.
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