In the sermon 'Kingdom Fundamentals for Victorious Living' by Peter Allison, the speaker explores the complexities of Luke 17, focusing on the nature and timing of the Kingdom of God, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the second coming of Christ. The sermon delves into the challenges of interpreting these events and the kingdom's characteristics, emphasizing its spiritual and internal nature as opposed to a geographical or observable entity. The sermon highlights the importance of understanding the kingdom as a spiritual renewal within believers and discusses various interpretations of the millennium, including pre-millennial, post-millennial, and amillennial views. The speaker urges believers to remain vigilant and dedicated to serving the kingdom, emphasizing that true victory is progressive and requires perseverance. The sermon encourages a focus on serving Christ and trusting in His ultimate victory over all enemies.

Please turn to Luke chapter 17. Scripture reading begins at Verse 20 this morning. Hear God's word. Now when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, See here or see there, for indeed the kingdom of God is within you. Then he said to the disciples, The days will come when you desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and you will not see it.

And they will say to you, Look here or look there, do not go after them or follow them. For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. But in that day he who is on the housetop and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field let him not turn back. Remember Lot's wife.

Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you in that night there will be two men in bed, in one bed. The one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together. The one will be taken and the other left.

Two men will be in the field. The one will be taken and the other left. And they answered and said to him, Where, Lord? So he said to them, wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together. May God give us understanding to keep his law and obey it with our whole heart.

Heavenly Father, as we continue to worship, we ask this morning that you would bring your word to us in power and in much assurance and by the Holy spirit. We ask that you might be exalted before us and I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips and preserve me from error through Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, this is a very difficult passage. It's difficult for a couple of reasons.

One it's not easy to figure out which event Jesus is talking about here. Is he talking about the destruction of Jerusalem or is he talking about the second coming? And good men are on both sides of that question. And I think we all acknowledge that This is difficult to determine in this case. It's also somewhat difficult because.

He's talking about the kingdom of God here. And. That can be a confusing word as to what exactly is the kingdom of God. It can be difficult to define. And again, good men differ in their understanding of the nature of the kingdom, the duration of the kingdom and the timing of the kingdom.

And so with that introduction, let's turn to this text and recognize that there are some difficulties here. And there are things that are difficult to accommodate, difficult to explain, but oftentimes it is in those difficulties that the answer, the right understanding of the passage is revealed. So I'd also like to say as well that the primary passage in the Gospels that addresses the kingdom, these two events, the Christ's second coming and Christ's coming and judgment on Jerusalem is in Matthew 24 and 25. That is the place where we have anywhere in the Gospels the most extended discourse of Jesus on these two topics. And so I'd like to, this morning, just briefly look at that passage, because that is the clear passage.

There are some very clear statements there that I think we need to have in mind to rightly begin to understand what's happening in Luke 17, which is a much more abbreviated discussion. It's much shorter. It doesn't cover as many things. And so in some ways it's a little bit harder to understand. And so Matthew 24, and if you have your Bibles, I would just ask you to turn there because we'll take a minute to just outline what happens in Matthew 24 and Matthew 25 so that we can identify.

There's a couple things that are very clearly stated here and we need to have those clearly in view as we come to Luke 17. So Matthew 24 is called the Olivet Discourse, commonly called the Olivet Discourse. As Jesus went out from the temple, as disciples come to him and they ask him, or well they showed him the temple, And Jesus' response was, not one stone that you see here will be left standing, but these will be thrown down. And so they ask him. And they get to the Mount of Olives.

They ask him privately, and they say, well, tell us, When will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? There's three questions there. When will these things be? When are the stones that we showed you in this beautiful temple, when are they gonna be such that there's not one stone standing on another.

And so Jesus then begins to answer these questions and this his answer goes all the way to the end of chapter 25. And you read about a lot of things We read about this abomination of desolations. We read about wars and battles and rumors of wars and great tribulation and great wrath. But one thing that we see here very clearly is Jesus is giving them signs. He says when you see these signs, then you know what I'm talking about is ready to happen.

And when you see these signs, flee, flee. Don't look back. Don't go into the house to get one last thing. Flee immediately And that we see is in verse 17. Well, verse 16, those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

If you're in Judea, flee to the mountains. So it's very specific. It's not It's not a general statement to everybody throughout the world to flee. Where is everybody going to flee to? It's it's a statement to the people in Judea and in Jerusalem.

They are to flee to the mountains. Which they did. Which the believers did when this happened. Now he uses some metaphors there. We'll look at those in a minute.

Immediately then in verse 29, immediately after those days, we see some more things happen, Mainly that the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven. The sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven. And there are many historical attestations to the sign of the Son of Man appearing in heaven. And then we have 32, this I'm telling you a lot of detail so that you can recognize when this time comes. Now learn from the parable of the fig tree when its branch has already become tender and put forth leaves verse 32 or verse 33 you know the summer is near so also when you see all of these things know that it is near at your door.

So he's saying I'm telling you all these details so that you will know exactly when this time comes and when it comes you will recognize it and you will be able to flee. And then he says this, Assuredly, truly, amen. I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. He just told them in chapter 23 that this generation, these judgments would come on this generation. He said in verse 23, 36, that all these things will come on this generation.

He just pronounced condemnations there that they crucified the Lord of glory and and that on them would come all the righteous blood shed between Zachariah and Abel. So on that generation, these walls will come. He says the same thing here on this generation. The people he was talking to all these things, he said, would happen. Heaven and earth will pass away, he says, but my words will never pass away.

And then he says, verse 36, but a big change, but of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. There's obviously a big, there's obviously he's talking about something else here now because he just spent 35 verses saying you're going to know when this comes here's the signs and now he's saying but of this other time you're not going to know. In fact the angels don't even know. Only the Father, Jesus says only the Father knows that even he as respects his human nature did not know the time of the second coming. And now he characterizes a very different kind of time, where before he was talking about a time of wrath, of tribulation, of wars, of rumors of wars.

Now he says, well, it's going to be like the days in Noah. They were eating and drinking and marrying and given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. That's a very different kind of time. This is describing ordinary life. People eating and drinking, partying, giving, getting married.

That's normal routine life. And that's going to happen, that's going to go on until, without warning, without any notice, without any signs, Christ returns. Two men will be in the field, one will be taken in the other left, two men will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken in the other left. Watch, therefore, you don't know what hour your Lord is coming. So it's a very it's exactly the opposite.

He said before, watch, because you will know when it's coming of the destruction of Jerusalem, which would happen to that generation that he was talking to. But of this second coming of Christ, you're not going to know. So therefore, you need to be watching. We need to be watching and we need to be praying. Be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

And then he goes on to tell about the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins. The wise ones were those who prepared and when the bridegroom tarried they were ready because because they were prepared ahead of time the foolish ones when the bridegroom tarried they weren't prepared and they missed the parable of the talents A man traveled into a far country, gave the talents to his servants and told them to occupy until he came. And he says, after a long time, the Lord of those servants returned and settled the accounts. And then we have the ending of Matthew 25, which talks about a picture of the judgment, the God gathering the sheep and the goats and saying to the one, depart from me, I never knew you into everlasting destruction, punishment and the others into everlasting life. And so Jesus, there are so we see very clearly in Matthew 24 that that the destruction of Jerusalem and all those things happened to that generation and then we see very clearly what the second coming would be like.

That it would be, it would come suddenly without warning and no one would know the time of its coming. So with that background, let's look at Luke 17. Let's look at Luke 17. And one of the difficulties right off that we see is that in Luke 17, language that's applied to both the destruction of Jerusalem and the second coming are both in this passage. So it makes it a little bit confusing.

But I would say that Metaphors are often used that way. Jesus often used similar language when he was preaching on different occasions. You probably notice that I tend to repeat certain phrases, certain words more than others, and maybe use those same phrases or same couple words in in different contexts well Jesus in his preaching did this did the same thing it's part I think of human nature to some extent and And so a metaphor can be applied to many different situations. We talk about, for example, we talk about train wrecks. A train wreck is a metaphor used to describe an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions.

Because if you've ever seen a train wreck, you know, it happens kind of in a little bit in slow motion because the train is so long as one car after another car just gets popped off the tracks. It's not like you can just go pick these cars up and set them back on the tracks. It takes months to clean up a train wreck. We might use that to describe a pile up of cars on a freeway. But we also might use it in a more figurative sense to describe a big project that has gone off the rails and failed in some major way.

It has a huge cost and huge implications. The kind of, maybe if it's in the corporate world, it's the kind of failure that gets people fired and so on. And so we can use this metaphor in different ways and so can I think some of the metaphors that Jesus uses in Matthew 24 and Luke 17? They're metaphors and they can be used to describe different situations. Now the second difficulty here is just with respect to what is the kingdom.

What is the kingdom? There are various views about what the kingdom is. The kingdom is generally by all the different views, the kingdom is generally associated with the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20. Because in Revelation 20, Christ and the Saints are explicitly said to reign during that thousand years and so if you hear the Millennium somebody talking about a Millennium they're talking that's a reference to this thousand years that's mentioned in Revelation 20. So there's one question about the millennium.

Is it a literal or a figurative thousand years? Is it literally one thousand years, one actual millennium in history? Or is this being used to refer to a figurative long time? The Bible uses it both ways. The Bible talks about God owning the cattle on a thousand hills doesn't mean he doesn't own the cattle on the thousand and first hill.

It means he owns the cattle on all the hills. But there is also a thousand years when Noah lived nine hundred and thirty years and died. He lived 70 years short of a thousand years. So which is this kingdom? Is Revelation 20 speaking of a figurative period or a literal period?

You might have heard the words pre-millennial, post-millennial, all-millennial. Well, those words have reference to this question. Those who believe in a pre-millennial or post-millennial view believed in a literal thousand years historically. The all-millennial view believed that the millennium, the thousand years in Revelation 20, is a figurative period and it extends from Christ's first coming to his second coming. So it's a figurative thousand years.

Now, historically, the terminology was chileist. Now, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. It seems like there's two views on how to pronounce it, chileist or chileist. It's a Greek word. It means 1, 000.

Since it's a Greek word, chileia or hilli, hilli-i in the singular, I'm going to pronounce it chileist because that's where it comes from, the Greek. And in the Greek it's, killio, or, killioi. So, historically, the people that believed in a literal thousand years were killius. Or, killius. And those who didn't, who believed in a figurative thousand years they well they weren't killius and that's where the word amillennial came from more recently ah means not a moral means somebody who is not moral.

A millennial simply says it's not a literal thousand years. Now the next question about this kingdom in this thousand years is is the millennium realized or are we in the millennium today or is the millennium future? Historically the pre-millennial and post-millennial believed in a future thousand years and if you read a lot of the theologians around the time of the Reformation they were discussing when the Millennium would start and some of them thought it would start very soon in the next 50 years the next 30 years I'm talking about in the in the early six in the 1600s There were many of the post-millennials believed that Christ was, this millennium was about to come, that they were about to enter this golden age. So one of the characteristics of Achilleus is they believe in this thousand years will be a period of a golden period. I got ahead of myself there.

We were looking at whether it's realized or unrealized. So pre-millennials and post-millennialists believe in an unrealized millennium, its future. The all-millennial said no, it's a realized millennium. The thousand years extends from Christ's first coming to His second coming. Now the next question is the nature of the Millennium.

Is it a completed victory or a progressive victory? Is the Millennium a completed victory? So is when Christ is reigning, is his victory complete? If it is, then there's nothing, there's no sin to be found or very little. There's extensive peace and great blessing and prosperity.

Or Is it a progressive victory? But what's a progressive victory? Well, progressive victory is where you're winning. You've won the war, in a sense, but you have the mopping up operation to do. You can think of the campaigns in World War II on Germany or on Japan.

Initially, those countries were winning, but then there was a turning point. And the farther time went, the more certain their defeat became. But it took a year. It took a year for the Allied armies to complete that victory. And so they were in a war.

The war was still going on. People were still shooting and dying. But the Germans and the Japanese were progressively being defeated as the Allies marched forward. Oh, there might be small setbacks here and there, but the momentum was with the Allies and people were assured that they were going to win. It was just a matter of how many months it would take.

That's the difference between a progressive victory and a completed victory. Typically the pre and post-millennialists believed in a completed victory in the Millennium, whereas the all-millennialists believed in a progressive victory. Now the next and the last question about the kingdom is really when does Christ return in with respect to the kingdom and that's where you get the difference between pre and post millennialist or Achilles. The pre-millennial said Christ's second coming was before the millennial reign and the post-millennialist said Christ would return at the end of his millennial reign. Of course the Omnils don't really come into that question because Christ is going to return at the end of the millennial reign.

That's how they define the millennial reign from Advent to the Second Coming. Now, that's the historical views and terminology. Today, I think most post-millennialists have abandoned the historical post-millennial views and adopted the all-millennial views about the millennium. And so that's what makes for all the confusion. You have to ask whether somebody is a historical post-millennialist or whether they adopted the modern 20th century definition of all millennialism, which is really the post-millennial view.

So That's the terminology and that's the understanding. I think most today in our circles understand that the Millennium is realized that we are in the millennial reign that it's a progressive victory and that Christ is going to come at the end of that. Now so what is this What is this patches talking about? Is he talking about the destruction of Jerusalem here or is he talking about the second coming? And there are two.

There are two things I would like to point out why I think this is speaking this passage is speaking of the second coming. And the first concerns this word day versus days. These days in scripture usually refers to Christ coming. And Christ coming in judgment in history, Whenever you see the word plural days usually refers to Christ coming in history. When you see the day, That usually refers to Christ's second coming.

So let me give you some examples. First Corinthians 1, 8, who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds, 1 Corinthians 3, 12, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire and fire will test each one's work what sort of it. It's the day, the singular there. 1 Thessalonians 5.3, for when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that this day, singular, should overtake you as a thief. Second Timothy 1, for this reason I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day, the second coming. Second Peter 3, but the day of the Lord, the singular, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. That's how the Bible speaks of the second coming.

It's always the day. If we look in Matthew 24, how it uses it, we see the same consistency. Before verse 34, that's the time text that separates what comes before, deals with the destruction of Jerusalem, what comes after, deals with the second coming. Before verse 19, but woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days." Plural. Verse 22, and unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect's sake they will be shortened.

Verse 29, Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be dark and the moon won't give its light and the stars will fall from the heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Immediately after the tribulation of those days. Okay. But now look at the very, verse 36, after the time text. But of that day.

And our no one knows. Not even the angels of heaven, but my father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving a marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. In other words, he's speaking there of the suddenness of it, the no no warning.

And then in verse 20, 50 of Chapter 24, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking. So if we look at this passage, with one exception, it speaks of the day, the day of the Son of Man. For as the lightning flashes, verse 34, so also the Son of Man will be in his day. Verse 30, even so will be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Secondly.

And in this passage, there is no call to flee. That was a big part of Matthew 24. That was Jesus' whole purpose in the first 20 or 25 verses there was telling them when they should flee and what the sign of that would be. But there's no call to flee in this passage. In fact, it's just kind of the opposite.

Whoever seeks his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The whole point of fleeing was to save your life, to avoid this great wrath. Jesus is saying here, if you just the opposite, those who seek to save their lives are going to lose it. And and that is the way that the New Testament writers spoke of their life in this millennium. 2 Corinthians 4, for we who live are always delivered to death for Christ's sake that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. He talks about I'm more in prison more frequently, in deaths often. In danger of death. Or in Revelation 2.

Don't fear the things that you're about to suffer. The devil's about to throw some of you in prison that you may be tested and will have tribulation, but be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. He's speaking to people that were not not around Jerusalem. They want to flee. They were to be faithful in their situation to death.

Hebrews 11 speaks of many who were martyrs for the faith. So there's no call to flee here. And so I think for these two reasons, I primarily I think this passage is speaking of the second coming now. Finally, after that lengthy introduction, we get to what does this passage teach us about the kingdom? And that's what we want to really focus on.

What does this passage teach us about the kingdom? Well one the kingdom doesn't come with observation in verse 20 Jesus said doesn't come with an outward show it's Jesus told Paul it's not an earthly kingdom if you set up an earthly kingdom What do you do you have a press conference you bring in? The band and you bring in big people and you make a big splash and you have a big ad campaign, right? That's how you announce the inauguration of a new president. That's how you would announce the formation of a country.

Right. Not so, Jesus, it's not just not going to be any outward show. And so he's saying Jesus is saying that those people who are looking with eyes of flesh to see some earthly or carnal aspect at the inauguration of this kingdom, they're mistaken for it because it's an inward. For Calvin said it's nothing else than the inward and spiritual renewal of the soul. And Jesus told Pilate, if my kingdom were of this earth, then I would fight.

But it's not my kingdom isn't of this earth. It's in the earth, but it's not of the earth. It's not an earthly kingdom. It doesn't begin with observation. It begins small.

Small. Now, secondly, in verse 20, this kingdom is not tied to a particular geography. You can't say, here it is or there it is. It's not confined to the Jews. It's not confined to Israel.

It's not represented in Jerusalem. It doesn't have an earthly capital. You can't point to it and say, well, that's it right there because it's a spiritual kingdom. The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, See here or see there, for indeed The kingdom of God is within you or in your midst. He's speaking here about the beginning of this kingdom.

Jesus has said to reign in the midst of his enemies in Psalm 110, and he said to reign until he put all enemies under his feet. The kingdom is within us, Jesus said. That's the third thing we see about this kingdom. It's within us. Now that can mean in our midst, okay, it's among us, it's here, but it can also mean within you.

And I think within you is the sense in which the New King James translates it. And I think that's closer to what Jesus is saying. Now, both are true, I believe. Both could be said to be true. I think the point here is You can't point to a geographical place.

You can't point to some outward show inaugurating this kingdom. Why? Because the kingdom is, as Calvin said, it's a spiritual renewal of the soul. It is within us. That is where the kingdom begins.

That's how Christ is reigning differently in the millennium than he did before. He's reigning in the hearts of his people and through his people. And in verse 22 then, Jesus goes on to offer some encouragement or some warning and some encouragement. He said to his disciples, then he said to his disciples, so it's a little bit of a shift. The days will come when you desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and you will not see it.

The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man. Notice it's the plural there. He's saying you're going to desire to see the days of the Son of Man. What are the days of the Son of Man? Well, that's like in Matthew 24 when Christ came and judged his enemies.

He destroyed Jerusalem and Rome, destroyed the temple. I think what he's saying here is he's preparing them that there will be days when you won't see have great victories and judgment on the wicked. You're going to be looking for them. You will look you will desire to see one of the days you desire to see these times like you're in right now when Christ was present or like when God came and destroyed the Jews and preserved the church from the great wrath. But he said there will be times when you won't see that.

The setting up of the kingdom was a work that would meet with a great deal of opposition and interruption. At first they were going to have wonderful successes. Remember, there were thousands that were saved and added to the church in one day. But he's saying, don't think it's always going to be like that. You will be persecuted and scattered.

You'll be silenced. You'll be imprisoned. You won't have opportunities to preach the gospel without fear like you do now. People are going to are going to hate you. People that enjoyed your preaching are going to turn against you.

You're not going to see this great harvest of souls continue. And so I think the gospel, he's saying the gospel will not always be preached with equal liberty and equal success. But don't be discouraged by that. Don't be discouraged. If you're expecting that, Jesus has said that's what you can expect.

Then when those times come, you're not saying, oh, well, we must be doing something wrong. But you can recognize that you need to keep on doing what's what you've been called to do And wait and pray for the Lord to bless that work. But wait patiently. Jesus then tells the disciples, they're not gonna miss the second coming. Remember the Thessalonians had that same kind of fear that they had missed the second coming somehow.

And Paul assured them, no, no, you haven't missed it. You're not going to miss that. Don't worry about missing it. Jesus says in verse 23. And they will say to you, look here or look there.

Well, don't go after them or follow them. In other words, you were looking for one of these days of the Son of Man, and you're going to see people saying, go here or go there, but don't follow them. For as the lightning flashes out of one part under heaven and shines to another part under heaven so also the Son of Man will be in his day but first but first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation and now here he says as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man. Uses the word plural there, and I think this is, I think here, and I could be wrong in this but but I believe Jesus just like in Matthew 24 where he addressed both events I believe he alludes here to this destruction of Jerusalem He must suffer many things and be rejected and as it was in the days of Noah so it will be in the days of son of man. They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.

These people they're oblivious to the judgment that's coming. But he ends it this way. Even so it will be in the day when the son of man is revealed. I think what he's saying is in both of these events, I think it's alluding to both of them in both of them. The judgment is going to come on the people, unaware on the unbelievers, they're not going to be expecting it it's going to come unawares is this applied he uses metaphors that are the same describe the same sort of thing And so I think it applies both to 70 AD and the second coming.

People are oblivious to the coming judgment and it's a warning to us that we should not be oblivious and caught up like that and oblivious to Christ's return. He's going to come at a time when we don't expect it. We don't want to be like these people in the days of Noah or Lot who were living oblivious to the judgment that was coming to them. And in a moment, they were destroyed. Rather, in verse.

In verse 33. Jesus tells his people to spend and to be spent in kingdom service. To spend and to be spent in kingdom service. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life will preserve it.

I tell you in that day there will be two men on the bed, one will be taken, the other left, two women grinding, one will be taken, the other left, two men in the field, one will be taken and the other left. Now I should comment on verse 31 and verse 32. In that day he was on the housetop, let him not come down, his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away and likewise the one in the field let him not turn back Jesus is saying there our focus ought to be on on serving the king and he puts that reminder in there remember Lot's wife what was the problem with Lot's wife I don't think this is a reference so much to fleeing. That's what they were doing. But remember Lot's wife is a reminder to remember someone whose heart wasn't serving the Lord.

Her heart was back in in Sodom and she looked back because that's where her heart was. And she was turned into a pillar of salt where she was told to flee and that was to be her focus. That was to be her job. She didn't focus on that. Her heart was really back in slottom and Jesus is here bringing that reminder out to say our life, our focus should be on serving Christ, on his kingdom.

Matthew Henry says they do best themselves that trust God in the way of duty. We're servants of Jesus Christ and if and we might think that. That we would be better served. By doing something to preserve our life, but Jesus is saying the opposite, if those who seek to save their lives will lose it, but those who lose are willing to lose their lives in Christ's service will preserve them. Spend and be spent.

In kingdom service. And lastly, well, not second to last I guess the Wheat and the tears grow together in verse thirty four. And verse thirty five, there is there is I think a picture here, wheat and tears together. They're both there. They're both present in this time.

And so we shouldn't be discouraged because not everyone is a Christian or not everyone becomes a Christian. Jesus said the wheat and the tares are going to grow together until the final judgment. Yes, and. And so there are even even in the final judgment, there are people or even up to the final judgment. There are people who are who are not in in the church.

They are not Christians. Then in verse 37 finally the disciples asked Jesus where, where is this happening Jesus answer is somewhat cryptic wherever the body is there the Eagles will be gathered together wherever the wicked are those who are marked out for perdition, they shall be found out by the judgments of God that fall. Just like wherever dead carcasses is, you can find that out by the birds of the prey that gather around it. You ever drive down the road and see a flock of birds around carrying, right? You know, well, that's an animal died there without even seeing the animal, just seeing all the birds gathered on that, you can surmise that.

And that's what I think Jesus is saying. Wherever the body is there, the eagles will be gathered together. Wherever the wicked are who are marked for destruction, that's that's where that's where this is. Remember, there is no physical, geographical region specific that's singled out. But it's also, and I think Matthew Henry is right in recognizing that it's also true of the body of Christ.

In the same way, wherever Christ is, believers will flock to him and meet in him, just like the eagles gather around the prey, without having to be directed or shown the way, he says, by the instinct of the new nature. He says, quote, where Christ, now Christ is where his gospel and his ordinances and his church are. For two or three are gathered in his name, there he is in the midst of them. And there, and hither, therefore others will be gathered to them. The kingdom of the Messiah is not to have one particular place for its metropolis such as Jerusalem was to the Jewish church to which all Jews were to resort to but wherever the body is wherever the gospel is preached and ordinances are ministered, thither will pious souls resort, and there they will find Christ, and by faith feast upon him.

Wherever Christ records his name, His people will meet and bless them. Unquote. And so, brothers and sisters, we can be encouraged this morning that when we see the feats, we know that they are temporary. And we can certainly look to to ourselves and and examine ourselves in those times, but we can also know that those are but momentary. That Christ will be victorious.

And that he will reign. Until he's put all enemies under his feet. The last being death itself. Let us pray. Heavenly Father.

We know that there are some things that you have spoken that are hard to understand. And we ask, Lord, that you would guide us in these places to the knowledge of the truth. We ask that you give us a zeal to study your word, that we might rightly divide it. We ask also that you would encourage us this morning With your promises and with your assurance that when we face tribulations in this world of which you have said it is inevitable that we will face them. That we can have peace in them because of the words that you have spoken to us because of your promise to to overcome this world and so Lord we want to live in hope in the sure and certain hope of your complete and total victory over all your enemies that have dared to attack Christ to set themselves against the preaching of your word that have mocked your law and your commandments and blasphemed your name.

Father grant that we might be faithful witnesses, faithful even to death because you have promised a crown to those who persevere to the end. Father, we ask that by your grace you would enable us to persevere. In Jesus' name, Amen.