Mark 13:1-8

This chapter will be divided up into several other chapters on account of the number of subjects it covers.

Well, I was sitting in church a couple of weeks ago not paying much attention to the sermon, because a particular wording of a single verse in …Mark 13, caught my attention.

Verse 27:

And then shall He send His angels and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

"….uttermost part of earth to the uttermost part of heaven"?

So I flipped over to Matthew 24:31

And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Anybody notice the differences between these verses?

1. Matthew says "great sound of a trumpet". Mark does not.

2. Matthew says "one end of heaven to the other". Mark says "uttermost part of earth to the uttermost part of heaven".

Mark says collecting the elect from BOTH "earth and heaven". Matthew only mentions "heaven".

I noticed that and I was off. Off on a quest to find what other anomalies of language do these passages add and/or omit? Is one talking about the "end of the age" while the other is talking about the "end of the world"? Am I correct after all, that we are running parallel timelines between the end of the Old Testament era and the end of time?

Mark 13:1

Jesus is leaving the temple with one disciple.

Matthew 24:1

Jesus left the temple and multiple disciples come to him.

So, thus it's likely that the events in Mark of "leaving the temple" probably happened before what's recorded of the disciples coming to Jesus after having left the temple. Assuming Jesus only left the temple once in this context; although this may have happened at different parts of the same day?

Mark 13:3

Peter, John, James and Andrew are named as four who came to Jesus as Jesus was sitting "opposite the temple" on the Mount of Olives. (Assuming he was over by the Red Heifer alter; which ironically would have also been in the vicinity of Golgotha.)

Next they ask: "Tell us when these things shall be." (The destruction of the temple.) "What shall be the sign when all of these things shall be fulfilled?" (Note the saying: "when all of these things shall be fulfilled". Is this really a question about the totality of the end of time?

Matthew 24:3

Doesn't specify where exactly Jesus is on the Mount of Olives when unnamed disciples come to him.

Next they ask: "Tell us when these things shall be?" (The destruction of the temple.) And "What shall be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?"

The statement here in Matthew seems to be "1st century specific"; (possibly from the vanish point of the disciples believing Jesus will return in their life time?) Yet they ask about "the end of the age"? Did they know there would be a difference between the two? Granted at the point of the penning of the gospels they very well may have. We certainly see as they get toward the end of the epistles that they recognize the church is "in this for the long haul".

Now compare this statement to Mark. The verse in Mark encompasses the totality of when all that's been discussed will be fulfilled. Mark doesn't say anything about the return of Christ. Which is interesting upon the statement that the "wicked servants say in their hearts" that "the Lord delays His coming"!

Thus is Mark really addressing the end of time; while Matthew is addressing the end of the eon, with additional information to the end of time?

Mark 13:5-6

Matthew 24:4-5

Both verses are exactly the same.

Mark 13:7

"When you shall hear… be not troubled…such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet."

Matthew 24:6

"You shall hear…. see that you be not troubled…all these things must come to pass; but the end is not yet."

Mark implies that there will be a time before those who hear (of wars and rumors of wars); but "when you do hear" be not troubled. "Troubled" is the same word in both passages. It comes from a root word that means "to wail". The implication here appears to be "not wailing in panicked terror". "Such things must be" means "this (course of events) must come to pass".

(By further implication; does "not wailing in panicked terror" mean not to mourn regarding the end of the Old Testament system? Keeping in mind that the original hearers are only alive through one set of events; whereas those who are alive for the end of time, have history to look back at too.)

Matthew though adds "see" (see to it) that you are not troubled. The implication here is not to show fear. I.E. see to yourselves that you do not appear troubled. Which is an interesting instruction that is not given in Mark.

"All these things"; i.e. the totality of this course of events, must come to pass. The implication is that Matthew "kicks off" the whole of what the following span of time will bring to bear on all God's people who live during the era between the destruction of the OT system and the end of time.

Now here's where it gets interesting. The phrase "the end shall not be yet" in Mark is a "comparative phrase". The "end is not yet" in comparison to what?

Well, the most logical conclusion would be; in comparison to Matthew 24 which literally means "the end is not (to the) none".

Mark uses the same word "end"; but with an additional ending that conveys the comparison is to the shortened form of the word used in Matthew. It's like unto in English what we might express as "the end" compared to "the bitter end". Matthew is saying "this is not the bitter end"; whereas Mark is conveying; "this isn't the same "end" (as in Matthew)". Or in other words; (by implication of the comparison) this is the "bitter end".

I think the admonition of the Matthew "be not troubled" compared to Mark's "be not troubled is weighted on the fact that "this is not the bitter end". You of the end of the OT era are not to show fear (of the persecutors / or even the end of the OT system) because you know this judgement is against them who persecute you (as well as Christ having fulfilled that system). Yet, in regards to the 1st century as a whole, "the church" will survive the judgement of the persecutors.

For those at the end of time though; the final judgement befalls everyone in regards to the destruction of the physical cosmos. But those at "the bitter end" look to God to not be condemned with the world. At the end of the OT eon; the elect escape the judgment by fleeing; because the judgement is limited to a specific geographical area; because it's the precursor to "the bitter end". (Self limiting judgement on the "beast system" of that time.) At the "bitter end" there's no earthly place to escape the coming trouble.

Mark 13:8

Matthew 24:7

Both verses are exactly the same, except for two subtle changes. Amidst the "earthquakes, pestilence and famine", Mark also cites "troubles". "Troubles" means "rolling waves of seditious mobs". (Interesting!)

The other anomaly is that Mark states: "These are the beginning of sorrows." Whereas Matthew states: "All of these are the beginning of sorrows."

Again, Matthew's "All these are the beginning of sorrows" indicates the commencement of a "double ended judgement". There's the "commencement" of the "hurricane", the "calm" (eye of the storm) and then the "end of the storm".

And it appears that the delineating difference between the two sets of judgments is the "troubles" Mark conveys will be part of the final judgement. And if these "troubles" are literal "rolling waves of seditious mobs" (which there doesn't seem to be a reason to believe that they aren't). The notable difference between the end of the OT era and the end of time is that God ordained human civil governance begins to break down; and this is likely to happen "in rolling waves" on a global scale. We are seeing this happen now. The pitch forks come out!

(As of 07/04/23; of what we hear from citizen media sources, "France has fallen". They're in the midst of their own version of "the summer of love" that happened in 2021 in the U.S.

Are we dealing with competing narratives in regards to France and or even other international conflicts? It's hard to tell. There are some citizen journalists I listen to who state they have relatives in Paris who are not seeing these riots. Others have stated too though, that the riots (in Paris particularly) have moved out of the city into the surrounding suburbs.) Yet the mainstream media isn't reporting any of this! There have been various protests in France (going all the way back to the "yellow vest protests") even before the pandemic started. So we know the "civil unrest component" of what's unfolding, has been in operation for a while. (This aspect of the "loosing of Satan" didn't just start with Covid!)

Now the competing narratives regarding the war in the Ukraine certainly are noticeable. That's very obvious; as the western media is still proclaiming that Ukraine can (and "must") win this war. Although as time goes on; more and more of the western citizenry are noticing that the media isn't telling the truth. And certainly some of that recognition is because of the Internet. (Russia came prepared; NATO did not!)

As it Was in The Days of Noah?

Now the first thing that pops into my head when I think of this is the "as it was in the days of Noah" (That's Matthew 24:38.) Which maybe it'd be best suited to wait to get down there; as we are only currently on verse 9 in either book's passage.

The reason "as it was in the days of Noah" pops up in my head is all this transgender ideology "tacked on" to the LGB political activism of the prior era that we are now forced to address.

Granted, various countries in Western civilization are at different phases of whether or not they really think this is a good idea. (Like gain of function research: Just because you can do it; doesn't mean you should!) Great Britain has closed down all its child gender clinics and Scandinavian countries (who are the most liberal on homosexuality) have also stepped back on the "transitioning" children phenomena. Yet in the US and Canada; the insanity rages on!

Interestingly, we make assumptions about "the days of Noah" as related to "the Nephilim incident", "going after strange flesh" and the consequences on Sodom and Gomorra; that remains Scripturally relevant, as an example of "whole sale judgement directly from God" that reached all the way into the era of the dawn of the penning of the past events that made their way into Scripture.

Did the "days of Noah" get "this (modern) bad" though?

I suppose that could be a question of comparative perspective, as the planet was very different before the flood. The human population was a lot smaller and to some extent or another; people were still dealing with dinosaurs. (Now how many and to what extent were these extremely large animals actually dangerous to humans, other mammals and each other; we don't really know.)

We do know that individual organisms lived a lot longer and animals in the reptile, fish and amphibian families are the most likely candidates as those who continue to grow throughout their life spans.

Interestingly, (which I didn't know this) there are a few mammals that "technically" make that cut too. (Kangaroos and elephants bear some evidence that they continue to grow throughout their lives. It's just the rate of growth is less and less the older they get.)

So comparing humans just from a survival standpoint; the planetary environment was a lot different. It is also evident from the study of tribal hunter / gatherer societies that homosexuality in those circumstances is quite uncommon. Most of the African hunter / gatherer tribes today, don't even have a word for "homosexual". Which is an interesting sociological phenomena from the survival of a society standpoint.

Thus the question as to why injunctions against said behavior were deemed necessary to appear in the Pentateuch? Had this been quite the anomaly prior to that? Thus kind of quasi-evidence of "entropy" applied to human societies? It's an interesting question in relation to "how bad had things got prior to the flood"; but also, was Sodom and Gomorra so "beyond the pale" even of it's own day, that God made an example of those cities?

And add onto that Jesus's statement to the religious leaders of his time; that it will be more tolerable for the people of Sodom and Gomorra on Judgement Day than for that generation.

Thus making a "sociological comparison" between ancient Greco-Roman culture (or rather 1st century Jewish interpretation thereof) and western culture now.

Even the philosophers of antiquity, believed the fall of Rome was due to decadence and perversion; despite that in comparison to the "economic decadence of convenience" we have today, life in ancient Rome was still quite difficult!

So is it worse today than it was then?

Over all, the answer to that is probably "yes". Or at least in relation to the moral foundations that hold societies together. Particularly because post-modern thought is basically steeped in atheism; comes the push to throw out the sources that moored western societies to their moral foundation. (I.E. the Bible)

For all that the atheistic ideologues want to "throw away" of western culture; by importing people who primarily hold a "historic" Islamic world view, what do they think they are going to get? If you want to know what it's like to live under Sharia law; move to the middle east!

Yet are Muslims really a threat in regard to general sociological morals? Well, that's another question altogether. Islamic culture is still very family orientated and at least externally, morally based; particularly when it comes to policing sexual behavior.

So another possible example of how the atheistic leaders desire to tear down "Christian values" may very well backfire on them given the viewpoints of the groups they are looking to use for this "destruction". (Including migrants from South America.) Hispanic culture is also very family orientated; of which most Hispanic cultures are coming from a Roman Catholic background. Thus Hispanic Roman Catholics and African / Middle Eastern Muslims make an interesting mix of "immigration decisions".

I have a Pakistani family that moved in next to us. And not only is that culture very family orientated; they are also pro Capitalistic. This fellow, with the help of extended family members who primarily live in the city west of us; bought the gas station down the street. My neighborhood is very interesting. This town's population is about 4000 people and my neighborhood is probably the most ethnically mixed in this town. (I think we have every ethnic group imaginable.) All the immigrants in this town live around me.

So apply this relevance in the scope of Mark 13:7-8 as it applies to "rolling waves of seditious mobs" and "fear"? The individual immigrants aren't the issue. Matter of fact; most of the destroyers are actually white middle-class liberals from "good neighborhoods". None of the immigrants living around me buy into any of these liberal ideologies!

As applies to Mark 13's description though? In what could become a totalitarian "global society" there is no place to hide. (Look at China's "social credit system"!) Thus "he who endures to the end shall be saved" takes on an entirely new dimension. And no one escapes; including the Pakistani family who live next to me. The goal of the "beast system" is to suppress everyone.

In a following chapter; I will address the question as to whether or not the emergence of transgender ideology is actually a sign of the end? In the mean time though; the next chapter will continue on with Mark.