“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity” (Romans 12:2 JBP).
Never was the need for Paul’s plea more evident than in what you are about to hear here in this PODCAST.
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As you are about to hear this PODCAST, it was a night that Peter would never, ever forget.
Nor should we.
For embedded within the events of this night is a blessedly-enduring word of hope and assurance. Hope and assurance for you. Hope and assurance for me. And certainly hope and assurance for someone or someones whom you and I deeply love.
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It is one of the most enigmatic statements in all of Scripture.
Ironically, as you are about to hear in this PODCAST, this mysterious statement follows one of the clearest, most-unambiguous and glorious proclamations in all of Holy Writ.
Two statements: one perplexing, one perfectly understandable, both written by our old friend Peter.
Timely statements each, given that the Easter season is upon us.
Two statements that beg us to answer two compelling questions:
1. Where did Jesus go during the hours between Friday night and Sunday morning?
2. What did Jesus do during those hours between His crucifixion and resurrection?
My friends, you are about to hear an amazing story seldom talked about precisely because it is so enigmatic—“difficult to interpret or understand; mysterious.”
Words that, when understood properly, bless our lives immeasurably.
You are in for an Easter treat.
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If this doesn’t send shivers up your spine, I don’t know what will.
In this PODCAST, you are about to hear an absolutely amazing story about a most-remarkable individual, whom we barely met last week—Simon the Samaritan Sorcerer.
A man, BTW, whose eternal destiny—when all is said and done—remains a question mark, shrouded in mystery.
For of Simon we read,
“Then Simon himself believed and was baptized” (Acts 8:13).
So far, so good!
But then we read a mere 8 short verses later,
“But Peter replied… ‘Your heart is not right with God.’”
Uh oh.
Simon the Samaritan Sorcerer—A living, breathing contradiction—as we might expect from someone trafficking on dark side.
There is so much to this story that it is hard to know where to begin. So we will start with this…
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His legacy is forever set in stone, indelibly etched in granite as Simon the Sorcerer.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, Simon the Sorcerer is the very first person we meet outside of the cozy confines of the Holy City, Jerusalem. #ThisIsHuge!
You talk about a guy who had the deck stacked against him, meet this Simon the Samaritan Sorcerer.
That gasp you just heard was the rush of disbelieving air exploding out of the collapsing lungs of Luke’s original readers.
Trust me: We should gasp too!
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Not to be clichéd! But if the words, “Mission Accomplished” ever meant anything to anyone in any situation, they absolutely apply here in John 17.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, this is the moment, courtesy of John, now forever frozen in time.
The singular moment toward which all of human history, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, had been slowly but steadily building.
The seminal moment from which the remainder of human history, down to our present day, has been rapidly descending.
The consequential moment when Jesus could literally look up to Heaven and finally acknowledge,
“I brought glory to You here on earth by completing the work You gave me to do.”
Such mystery, such majesty, in these few words.
Indeed, a Mission — the Mission — Accomplished!
That mission that Jesus Himself defined when He said in referring to Himself,
“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost” (Luke 19:10).
Which, as you are about to learn, means far more than pulling people out of Hell. Indeed, infinitely more!
When the biblical writers, as well as Jesus, use the words “save” or “saved,” it means far more than whether we are going to Heaven or Hell when we die. Sadly, most of our Gospel-presentations focus almost exclusively on that locational / destinational dynamic.
However, a most compelling fact emerges from the first few words of Jesus’ prayer here in John 17.
As we are about to learn, if one’s view of his or her salvation centers primarily upon the notion that salvation is basically a “Get Out of Hell Free” card, we miss so much precious truth. So.Much.More than our finite minds can even begin fully to appreciate.
But try to appreciate it, we must.
So in an effort to appreciate it, let me take you on a bit of a journey, far back in time, to a faraway place, in order to show you where and why this journey originally began. All the way back to what is arguably the single most important verse in all of the Bible.
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On this Thursday night of Jesus’ final week, mere hours before the crucifixion, Jesus was worried about His disciples.
And as you are about to hear in this PODCAST, He was worried for a very good reason.
I don’t know if you have ever associated the word worry with Jesus, but as you will hear, in this case, at this time, in this place, that word worry is most appropriate.
Don’t worry (pun intended). I’m not trying to get all psychoanalytical on you. I am not fluent in psychobabble. And I’m not about to subject Jesus to a psychoanalysis.
But let us not overlook the fact that this is one of those rare glimpses into Jesus’ mind and heart on this — the single most traumatic night of His storied life.
What we see is a most-endearing picture of Jesus in all of His humanness on full display before disciples. I say endearing because the fact of the matter is this:
Jesus is equally worried about you. And that for the exact same Very.Good.Reason.
So what did Jesus do in response to His loving concern, His worry, His anxiety about His disciples? His loving concern, His worry, His anxiety about you?
Here’s a hint: What He did was AMAZING!
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Let me tell you! If you want to see in crystal-clarity the character and the heart of God, this is it. Right here, right now, in real time, in this PODCAST.
This in a breathtaking public display for all the world to see, at which the whole world will marvel. The broken heart of our God whom Peter described as “not wanting anyone to be destroyed (a word that means to destroy fully, to bring to nothing) but (who) wants everyone to repent.”
This portrait of our God — Who persistently pursues everyone in every way, making every effort to bring every sinner to repentance — comes at very end of Olivet Discourse in Matthew 25.
Here we will see, in this parable of the end of the age, the eternal separation of committed Christ-followers from those who defiantly and unrepentantly want nothing to do with Jesus. Plus, we will see their ultimate eternal destiny in what Jesus called “the eternal fire prepared for devil and his demons.”
An unpleasant topic, to be sure. But a #Most.Important.One, because we are talking about the eternal destinies of multiplied millions of people.
Specifically, what did Jesus mean by eternal fire? For whom is it intended? What happens to those goats (in contrast to His sheep) who are sadly, tragically, yet-justly cast into the eternal fire?
And of course, at the heart of this entire discussion sits this all-important and all too-common question: Does the loving God of the Bible — who defines Himself as not wanting anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent — really send people to Hell?
Allow me to set up this discussion in this way: I find it most-intriguing, and most-ironic in a most-purposeful sort of way that Jesus’ Hebrew name Yeshua, means “God Saves.” That’s right out of first chapter of the New Testament (Matthew 1:21): “Mary will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Yeshua, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Now watch this. Only God could create this wonder of the words. This, as you are about to hear, is not coincidental.
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, with Jesus’ words here in Matthew 24, the climax of human history as we know it will occur.
No one will miss it. No one will mistake it. Everyone will know exactly what it is that is happening and why it is happening!
The “it” to which I refer and which I intentionally repeated in the above sentences is Jesus’ Second Coming.
What did Jesus say? “Then all the tribes of the earth… will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
Quite a contrast to Jesus’ first coming, which you will remember was seen only by a few lowly shepherds out in the remote regions of Bethlehem. When Jesus came the first time, He came not with power and great glory, but as a newborn baby laid in an animal’s manger in the cold of a cave.
That was Jesus’ First Coming. In the run-up to the crucifixion, the disciples were understandably fixated on the future, specifically on Jesus’ Second Coming.
They were waiting; we are waiting. They were longing; we are longing. They were asking; we are asking: “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
In giving His answer, Jesus said this:
“That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 24:39).
“So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).
“You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected” (Matthew 24:44).
“But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne” (Matthew 25:31).
That’s what Jesus said just in Olivet Discourse. Indeed, the whole point of the Olivet Discourse is Jesus’ Second Coming.
So with all of that background, let’s discover together what Jesus taught us in the Olivet Discourse about His Second Coming.
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Picture him there, a grizzled, stooped, aged apostle, marooned on an island of rock, confined to a cave.
See him in your mind’s eye, with quill to parchment, writing fast and furiously in a mad dash to record everything that he is now seeing and hearing.
Our old (and at the time of his writing Revelation) very old friend, the beloved apostle John.
Writing, as you will hear in this PODCAST, what sounds like fantastical tale in specific, yet an all-too-plausible scenario in the abstract. A story that brings to a climax the epic collision that has plagued this planet and every person who has ever trod its blood-soaked soil since the beginning of history.
The climax of the collision of good versus evil.
As we were so graphically reminded just last Thursday in the south of France.
Here in Revelation both good and evil are personified.
Here the wellsprings of good and evil are identified by name.
Here this human-history-long all-out war finally, mercifully coming to its end, thankfully with good as the victor, and evil as the loser.
When I mentioned a moment ago that this epic tale sounds fantastical in the specific, understand that we are talking about spirits, angels, demons, devil, Jesus. A unique combination of physical and spiritual forces fighting to the death that sounds like the kind of stuff ready-made for a Hollywood blockbuster.
I wouldn’t blame anyone for rolling their eyes and curving their lips into a smirk that says, You don’t really believe all of this, do you?
+ Just this week, I was listening online to a TED talk (Technology, Entertainment and Design), brings together elites, the intelligentsia of world, during which a TED talk presenter mercilessly mocked and ridiculed people of faith who believe in things like you will hear when I read to you from Revelation 16.
I will be the first to admit that what we are about to outline in this podcast indeed sounds fantastical — in the specific. But in the abstract, no one can deny that there is operating in our world today two distinct colliding forces: one for good, and one for evil.
About that, nobody laughs.
Whether its on the grand scale of someone in a van mowing down innocent pedestrians gathered in the south of France for a Bastille Day celebration. Or as modest as a child throwing a bit of a temper tantrum because he or she doesn’t get what they want.
Let the record show that a good many TED talks are devoted in one way or another to just that collision.
It is as though we are caught between two worlds: One of unbridled evil in which people do to people horrifically unimaginable things. While at the same time, others of us try our best each day to surrender to our better angels, as even TED Talk presenters will sometimes call them. And when they do indeed invoke that phrase, our better angels, no one in that elite audience of the world’s intelligentsia laughs. (I guess its OK to invoke the image of angels in the abstract, just not in the specific.)
Well, in this study, we will invoke the image of angels, good and evil, and a whole lot more, and will do so without laughing because this is deadly serious.
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Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, 
