“Jesus Is Coming Again!” Mark 13:1-31

“Jesus Is Coming Again!” Mark 13:1-31

An Expositional Sermon
The Financial Times had an article published in the paper on Friday titled, “Twelve Ways the World Could End.” [1] Here’s the summary, “What are the chances of all human life being destroyed by a supervolcano? Or taken over by robots? A new report from Oxford university assesses the risks of apocalypse.” Here are the twelve things – (1) Unknown consequences, (2) Asteroid impact, (3) Artificial intelligence (probability is 0% to 10%), (4) Supervolcano, (5) Ecological collapse, (6) Bad global governance, (7) Global system collapse, (8) Extreme climate change, (9) Nuclear war, (10) Global pandemic, (11) Synthetic biology, and (12) Nanotechnology. They even have percentages for the probability of each one of these most are one 1/100th of a percent, but for some reason they estimate the probability of Artificial Intelligence at anywhere from 0-10%. In the text we’re considering today, Jesus tells us about the coming destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, but also about the end of the world, and this is something we can know with 100% probability. Here’s how our Statement of Faith summarizes the Bible’s teaching about how the world will end:

18. Of the World to Come
We believe that the end of the world is approaching; that at the last day Christ will descend from heaven, and raise the dead from the grave to final retribution; that a solemn separation will then take place; that the wicked will be adjudged to endless punishment, and the righteous to endless joy; and that this judgment will fix forever the final state of men in heaven or hell, on principles of righteousness.

[1] Cookson, Clive. Twelve Ways the World Could End. Published February 13, 2015 in FT Magazine. Last accessed February 15, 2015: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/260e3168-b177-11e4-831b-00144feab7de.html