The Need For Perseverance
THE NEED FOR PERSEVERANCE
MARK 13:9-23
Be encouraged if you are facing some form of opposition: stand firm in your witness.
If the lesson of the first part of Jesus’ discourse was “Do not be led astray,” that of the second part (13:9-13) is “stand fast.” The disciples are not only to take care not to be misled by the signs of the times; they must also hold out resolutely to the end, no matter how difficult circumstances become.
Persecution will take place both through official channels (religious and civil courts) and through personal enmity as families are divided among themselves. In this situation three facts must be remembered. First, the disciples are to be witnesses. When they are tempted to despair and to give up their witness, they must remember that the end will not come until the gospel has been brought to all the nations. Second, they are promised the help of the Spirit in making their witness in the courts. Third, they are to persevere in their faith right until death or the end if they would attain salvation.
The next section prophesies definite events (13:14-23). The phrase “desolating sacrilege” is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew “the abomination that desolates,” ie “the fearfully abominable thing” found in Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11. This prophecy was regarded as fulfilled in the desecration of the temple by Antiochus of Syria in 168 BC; the phrase is applied to this event in 1 Maccabees 1:54. Now a further fulfillment is prophesied. This fulfillment was the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in AD 70 (cf. Luke 21:20). The coming of this event was to be the signal for flight from the ensuing scenes of battle and carnage in Judea. Yet even these terrible events would not mean the immediate coming of the end, and men would still need to beware of being led astray by false Messiahs (such as Simon ben Koseba who appeared in AD 132).
The whole of this section fits excellently the events in and around AD 70 when the sufferings of Jews were indescribably cruel. It is doubtful whether we are to expect a further fulfillment of the prophecy (evil follows a pattern, just as God’s deeds conform to one) or simply to see these events as part of the sufferings associated with an end which has still not come. On either view of the passage, the warnings and advice given here are still relevant to Christians, and come alive especially at those times and in those areas where evil follows the pattern described here.