Sermon Notes / Transcript

Mark 13:24-31 — Everything Will Be Shaken

Speaker: Daniel Coughlin
Date: October 18, 2026

Scripture Reading

Our scripture reading today is the book of Mark, Mark chapter 13, verses 24 through 31. This is God's word, and it is eternally true.

Mark 13:24–25 — But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken.

Mark 13:26–28 — Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds and with great power and glory. And then he will send forth the angels, and will gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven. Now learn the parable from the fig tree, when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.

Mark 13:29–31 — Even so you too. When you see these things happening, recognize he is near right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

This is the word of the Lord.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Things That Seem Certain

When you woke up this morning, what things were you sure of?

Well, these days I I most of the time when I wake up I'm rising before the sun. The sun the sun seems to be sleeping in longer and longer every morning. And so I wake up and it's dark outside. But I don't worry that it's gonna stay dark.

I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure that the sun is going to rise. Are you pretty sure the sun's gonna rise? Good. And if I go out in the morning and I do my chores before the sun rises, I look in the northern sky and and I'm I'm sure I live in Kansas; it's rarely cloudy here.

I'm sure to see the dipper in the in the north. I'm sorry, that's wrong. I see in the morning I see Orion in the south. There's there's just I don't know very many constellations, but when you do know 'em and you look up and you see like there it is glorious to go out first thing in the morning on a cool crisp morning and see in the southern sky Orion.

That's one of the most wonderful parts of living in rural Kansas, is you can see the stars in a way that you can't see if you live in the city. Right, and then as I come back in and I sit in the living room, the sun starts to rise outside and the whole world, the birds start to chirp, and and everything comes to life.

Right? Another thing that I'm sure of is as the day wears on and the sun starts, you know, moves across the sky and starts to set in the west, it's gonna get dark again. Right? And if I if I look, this is this is when I look and see the northern sky.

I see the dipper in the northern sky in the evening. Right? These things are the regular patterns of life, right? There's a lot of things that changes on a day-to-day basis. You know, what's for breakfast might be different every day.

You know, what what what kind of work comes in during the day? Whether there's a snake in the house, right? Like things happen during the day on a day-to-day basis that we don't predict, that we don't expect, but there's some things that are as regular as clockwork, right?

The passing of the seasons is another one. It's autumn, and what happens in autumn to the leaves? They turn colors. They turn colors and then they fall to the ground. And how many of you look to see the leaves falling to the ground and lament because the tree's dead.

If you did, you were very young when you did that, right? Because we know we know the seasons. We know that just because the trees lose their leaves in autumn, we have great confidence that they will grow back, that the bud will shoot out, and there will be new leaves come spring.

Right? We have these rhythms. We have if you're a school kid, you have rhythms Monday through Friday, right? You typically wake up in the morning, you eat your breakfast, you load your backpack up, you get on a bus, you drive whatever, wh however the process is, you have the same classes.

You come home at the same time. More or less. Mostly less. Mostly less. You still have routines because what happens when Christmas break comes is your routine changes and you drive your parents crazy. And then and then you go back to the to the rhythm of school and then summer happens, and you have to adjust yourself to the rhythms of summer, right?

The expectations. And kids, if you're if you're if you're young, you think my parents are always gonna tell me to brush my teeth or to go to bed or to, you know, you can't drive the car. Or, you know, you you just you the way that you feel today, we have this way of like extrapolating so that it feels like this is how life is always going to be, right?

When we had young children and they were always needing to be, you know, fed or changed or burped or whatever they needed, right? It felt like that was how life was always going to be. You were you're stuck in this rut of babies, right? Babies. Never getting to sleep.

The Temple That Seemed Permanent

And I think that's what Jesus was trying to jolt his disciples out of. Sitting across from the temple, the day of this conversation that we're reading. Right? Because they were sitting there, right? They had just walked through the temple and and if you if you can't imagine the temple, have you all gone through the Topeka Capital building before?

You walk in and the entrance is down in the in the you know among the foundation stones. And so you have these huge blocks of limestone. I don't know, I'm assuming it's limestone. These huge solid blocks, immovable blocks, right?

Like you look at these things and they're massive, they're bigger than a car. How do they get moved there in the first place is incredible, but that they get stacked on top of each other and then a whole building gets built on top of it, a gigantic old building, it's incredible, right?

It seems like there's no way this could ever change. And that's what the disciples are thinking as they walk through the temple. Oh, look at these great, great stones. Can you believe they built this place.

And Jesus says, Alright, disciples, I've got to get your minds off of how great this building is because Jesus knew that the temple was going to be destroyed, and it was destroyed 40 years after they had this conversation. But Jesus didn't leave them just at that time of this is this temple's going to be destroyed.

He wanted them to know even more than that. He wanted us to know even more than that. Because if all this scripture was talking about was the temple, how relevant would it be to you and me? The temple's been destroyed for 1900 plus years.

Right? Going on 2,000 years. And so if the only point of this was that the temple was going to be knocked down and the regular sacrifices were going to go away. That's already happened. And honestly, it's kind of irrelevant to our life because we were, I I don't think anyone here is Jewish that I know of, and you are never involved in the regular sacrifices and you probably did not put your faith and your hope in the regular sacrifices.

That doesn't mean that there's not things we put our faith and our hope in, though, that are other than Jesus Christ. And that's what we need to see because Jesus is setting their eyes on something more than just the temple. Right? In verse 24, he makes a transition.

The Created Order Will Be Shaken

He says, in those days, after that tribulation, so this hard thing is going to happen. And then after that hard thing, then what? Then we read and listen. Listen and really hear this.

The sun, the sun, do you see the sun shining through the window here? The sun will be darkened. The moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven. Right? Jesus says he moves from the stones, the stones buried in the ground and holding the building up, to look up to this to the heavens, to the cosmos, to everything that's been created, and he says, this won't always be just like it is.

All those routines, all those rhythms, all those things that you're regularly familiar with, that you're comfortable with, it's not always going to go like that. It's not going to continue like that. He says, get your eyes off these earthly things. Stop looking at just buildings and congregations and you know the normal things for you.

You've got to look at things, at these created things as the limit of what they are, and that's why we should think about the trees whose leaves fall off in the autumn. Right? Because we know that the leaves were only given to the tree for a season.

Does that make sense? Trees only get their leaves for one season. And then they fall off and they have to make new leaves. In the same way, in a very similar way, this world, this creation was given to mankind, was given for our rule and dominion for a season.

Not for perpetuity. It's going to be shaken.

• The stones, yes.
• The church buildings, yes.
• The nations, yes, the kingdoms, yes.
• Also, the things we can't even touch.

Do you remember a couple years ago when we had the the solar eclipse come by? Come by, like it stopped in for a visit. When When the shadow of the moon, let me say it more precisely, when the shadow of the moon passed over us in midday. Do you remember that?

Do you remember feeling the coldness on your skin? Do you remember, you know, if if if you're nerdy like we were, you know, we looked up and and we were looking for some things like the the birds start to chirp in a way that they normally do at sunset and the insects start to make noise like they do when it's evening.

And it was midday. It was midday. And it wasn't just like a cloud went over. It was like nighttime darkness descended very quickly and at the wrong time of day, right? In a way that we had no control over.

We knew it was coming, but we can't do that. It's not like we're like, oh yeah, we've got a graduation party next week. Wouldn't it be really cool if we had an eclipse? These things happen because of the movement of celestial bodies that we have no influence over.

Right? Did you see, did you see this week the video of the flying car of Tesla's like car that can do somersaults? Like, totally cool, right? I mean that's that's neat technology that I don't know why, but it's cool. But that's not gonna move the moon.

You can't block out the sun. You're not going to darken the moon when it's, you know, when there's a full moon outside. You're not pulling down the stars to earth. These are things outside of man's control.

We don't have any control over how the moon moves. We don't have any control over how fast the earth turns, so when we see the sun sometimes we don't see it other times. These are cosmic things. And God often uses this kind of language to speak of his judgment, to speak of the day of the Lord, the day of judgment, the day coming.

The Prophetic Language of Judgment

Isaiah 13 warns. Wail, for the day of the Lord is near, it will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore, all hands will fall limp, and every man's heart will melt. They will be terrified. Pains and anguish will take hold of them.

They will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame. Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation, and he will exterminate its sinners from it. Listen. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light, the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light.

Thus I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. That's Isaiah. Ezekiel speaks similarly. I will lay your flesh on the mountains and fill the valleys with your refuse.

I will also make the land drink the discharge of your blood as far as the mountains, and the ravines will be full of you. And when I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light, and all the shining lights in heaven I will darken over you, and will set darkness on your land, declares the Lord God.

And just in case you think this is just an Old Testament thing, well, we we're reading in Mark right now, and this is Jesus' words. And then John also prophesies the same in Revelation 6. He says this: I looked when he broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as a fig tree cast its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind.

You see, this cosmic language often God uses to describe his judgment. Yet Jesus doesn't use it merely to describe political changes, not just nations and kingdoms and and the false gods and goddesses. He carries that prophetic language to its fullest horizon. The created order will be shaken. Right?

You remember reading in Genesis about the creation, God created all things, right? There was nothing, and then God created it. He created the stars and the sky. He created the earth and everything in it.

He created the waters. He created the sun and the moon, the lesser light to rule the night, the greater light to rule the day. And God says, all creation will be shaken. All creation will be shaken.

The Son of Man Will Appear in Glory

And then the Son of Man will appear in glory, and every earthly refuge will be exposed as temporary. This is completely outside our control. This is this is not you know do we have any preppers here? Anyone stockpiling grain and water and and food. It's it's a real thing and people get really excited about it and there's some people that make a lot of money off of it. You can't prep for this.

This is this is it. It's completely outside of our control. And so here Jesus is warning that even the regularity of the sun and the moon and the stars they'll give way. He's telling us that nothing in creation is beyond his authority.

The things that we can't move, we can't darken, we can't control, they are all his servants. When they are shaken, it doesn't mean that God has lost control, it doesn't mean that Christ has lost control. Because you're gonna be tempted to think that, right? I mean if you were you know that Venezuela had like a very extreme change in government, right?

What, a year ago, give or take. And if you were a Venezuelan, wouldn't you be thinking, wow, this is outside of our control? Like that's scary. It's scary to think that these things are happening to us in a way think of the Ukrainians that we're praying for, right?

Like all of a sudden Russia invades, and now you know, all of a sudden, and yet again, you know, the the tension between Russia and Ukraine is reignited. And this temporary peace that felt so good and comfortable is all of a sudden an uproar. And what does a Christian in that region think?

Is this outside of God's control? How do you not fear? Well, one way is to learn that God shakes these created things in order to shake loose our confidence in the created things. Right? Because think about the temple and the sacrifices.

If the temple and the sacrifices continue to this day how many people would continue to put their faith in in in that system in that process Right, we know our temptations. We know our temptations to put our faith and our hope in things that are created, things that are comfortable, things that are familiar.

And the more we do that, the less we look for Jesus the more that we're comfortable and satisfied and and our faith is is in that today is a great day and tomorrow is going to be a great day and, the next day is going to be a great day, the less we care about a resurrection, the less we care about a savior, the less we care about God's deliverance.

When we fool ourselves into thinking this life is great and this is all I need, and I've got everything I need right here and right now. We forget to look forward to the Son of Man. We forget to look forward to his return. Because we have to keep in mind that you know we we're coming on to the Christmas season.

And the Christmas season is when we remember Christ's coming, right? His entrance into the world, his putting on flesh, his humiliation, his being born in a lowly manger, his being born as a baby, his growing in wisdom and stature. And that's there's a level of comfort that we have with Christ coming like that.

But we can't forget that Christ promised that He's going to return and He's going to return in judgment and He's going to return in power and glory. He's not going to come back as a baby. He's not going to come back in a persuasive manner with miracles to demonstrate the power of his kingdom.

He's coming back in the fullness of his power and glory. He's coming back to shake all of his creation. And when everything else is shaken, he sends his angels to gather in his people. Right, that's what we read.

Christ Will Gather His Own

Verse 27. And then he will send forth the angels and gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven. That's gotta be our security. That's gotta be our security. Our security is that God doesn't forget one of you.

He knows those who are his, and he's going to gather them together and care for them and deliver them. It's kind of like we take road trips every once in a while and we've got six children. And I make them count off when we get back in the car, especially when it's dark, because I don't want to leave one behind at a rest stop or a gas station and and have to like turn back an hour and a half later when I finally realize that they're not there, right?

That's because I'm a fallible man and and maybe not a very good dad. Jesus is not like that. He knows all who are his. And he's going to send out his angels to gather them all in, to watch over them, to protect them, to keep them.

Christ knows his own. That's something that you can take confidence in. That's something you can put your trust in. You can put your faith in.

That Christ keeps his own. He will gather his own. Not one will be forgotten, or overlooked, or left behind. For those who belong to him, Jesus commands a watchfulness, right, a readiness.

Be Ready: Christ Is at the Door

He says learn from the parable of the fig tree calling us to be ready for his return. That he stands at the door. What does it mean to stand at the door? If I stood at the door and you knocked, what would happen?

I'd probably open it, right? I mean I'm right there, right? It's not like someone who's you know asleep in their bed. It's someone standing ready at the door.

Readiness, our readiness, is not an anxious speculation or confidence in our own discipline. It's abiding in Christ by faith, repenting of sins, ordering our lives by his word, and using the means by which his spirit preserves his people. The readiness is tested when life becomes uncertain. Have you noticed this?

It's it's not when things are easy that we tend to pray. It's not when things in our life are light that we tend to search the scriptures and memorize God's Word. It's when things are hard, it's when the bank account's low. It's when your relationship with your spouse is difficult.

It's when your kids are disobedient. But not just like regular disobedient. It's like when you're really desperate. Because the shaking does not create the object of our trust.

The shaking of the creation reveals what really is the object of our trust. Right, like when your family's shaken, when there's some sort of conflict, and conflict comes a lot of different ways, right? Like if you have in-laws, you've probably felt conflict. If you have a sister or a brother you've probably felt conflict if you've been married you have 100% for sure experienced conflict Those relationships cannot form the foundation of your faith.

Because they're they they're gonna be shaken. Right? Sometimes by serious things, sometimes by stupid things. They will be shaken. And you all have your own experiences of those relationships being strained and those relationships shaking your family and shaking your faith.

What the Shaking Reveals

If we're honest When something that is precious to us is threatened or removed, we discover whether our confidence rests in Christ or whether our confidence, our faith rests in the gifts and the benefits of being in Christ. You see, we it's so easy for us to put our faith in our health and our family and our friends and our financial security and our house or our land, these are the things that when God puts his finger on them to shake them, we lose faith, we lose hope.

We lose our confidence in God. Because it's not really in God, it's in the things that God has given us. What I'm worried about is you hear this, and all you think about is how foolish other people are. Like you think about other people and how they've put their faith in the wrong thing.

It's easy to think about the disciples and think, how could they stand there with Jesus and be so excited about a building. It's easy to look down on the disciples. It's easy to look down on the Jews in general and say, they put all their faith and their hope in the sacrifices.

And what are the sacrifices? How foolish. The Pharisees, they put all their hope in their perfect obedience to the law. How foolish! It's harder to see the ways that we put our faith in the gifts of God and in his creation. But that's the work we must do.

False Foundations of Confidence

The warning of this passage is aimed at your hearts. What do you treat as permanent? Because you can't imagine life without it. Have you established your faith and trust in things or people other than Jesus and his word?

What could happen to you? What could be removed from your life that would shake your faith? Now, I don't think it's the church building. I think if this church building burned down, I think you'd all be okay.

I think you'd all find someplace to go or we'd build a new church or something would happen. Like I don't think I don't think that this is the thing. But that's not to say you don't have things. I know families who have been torn apart because a grandchild came out as a transgender.

He was a boy, he was a son, he was a grandson, and he came out as a transgender girl. He said, I'm going to change, instead of being your son now, I'm going to be your granddaughter I'm going to be your daughter and and and the family split because some wanted to affirm him in this decision and some stuck with the truth and said, no, we can't do that.

This is a real thing that really divides and destroys families. And if you're not prepared for it, and you love your family like you should. I mean you should love your family. It's good to love your family.

It's good to have a family. It is not good to reject that God created man, male, and female, and that God tells us that we are to obey the sex that He assigned us by the body He gave us. We don't get to pick and choose these things.

And these are the kind of things that if you don't have a firm conviction about it from the beginning, you're going to be tempted to go along to keep family peace. For our women here who come while their husbands stay at home, I mourn with you for the conflict that's in your household.

But this is a trial that you're already enduring through faith. And I pray that God would strengthen you in it. But others who come to the church together, there's no guarantee that your spouse is always going to be warm toward the church. Their heart may well grow cold and they may see no no purpose in in waking up early on Sunday morning.

What do you do? This is real. This is real. Because in the church, you know what we do? We hurt each other sometimes. Sometimes we step on each other's toes and we say harsh words and we do things that are inconsiderate and guess what?

You get hurt. It happens in your family, it happens at your workplace, it happens in the church. And so our temptation, the problem is, our temptation is to just ignore it and pretend like it'll go away. When we're really called to confess and repent and to be reconciled and restored one to another, and in that way to grow in our love for one another, not grow in our distance from one another.

That's often what leads to spousal splits of caring about the church is being hurt and and then growing in bitterness rather than growing in in faith and growing in repentance and growing in seeing yourself. Another way I mentioned the church building, but I think probably a bigger risk is having faith in your in the institution of the church, in the in maybe the congregation of the church.

And you see this when when churches grow cold themselves, kind of like the churches we read about in Revelation, but when the church no longer preaches God's law, no longer preaches God's holiness, no longer preaches piety, instead it only preaches grace and love and and throws out discipline, doesn't think about discipline at all.

And but but yet, you know, you think of the church as your family. Like I can't leave my family even though they no longer warn people about the sacraments or discipline people who fall into obvious repeated sin. The flip side is true also. There's a way in which we we prioritize the church in an unhealthy way, in a in a in a sinful way, when the church starts preaching legalism and there's all these rules, and as long as you abide by the rules, no one really cares about your heart.

No one cares that you're not hospitable. No one cares that you're not kind, that you're not merciful, that you're not slow to anger. All they care about is that you check the boxes of these familiar rules. And you say because you have this false sense of righteousness, that because I've followed the church's rules, I'm therefore okay, and I don't need to care about God's commands to love your neighbor as yourself.

To love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. In either case, the comfort of the institution of the church can conceal not having any affection toward toward the God of the church. This is not an exclusive list, right? There's all sorts of ways that you can falsely put your confidence in the creation rather than the creator.

That you can put your faith in things that will be shaken, maybe in your life, maybe not in your life. Maybe the shaking will happen after you're gone. But these are things that will be shaken. Everything that seems permanent, even these big foundation stones, everything will be shaken.

The Word That Will Not Pass Away

Christ's coming cannot be stopped, and his word will not pass away. So what are we to do? We're to look to Christ who faithfully gathers all who are his, and whose return will come in a day and an hour that no one knows, and in whom we can trust that his word will not pass away.

All we know is that we are to be ready for that day. Because here's the thing. It's appointed unto man a day to die, and then the judgment. We don't know if we're gonna make it to that day of judgment, but we know with a hundred percent certainty that every man and woman and child in this room is going to die and then is then going to face judgment.

We don't know which one's going to come first.

And so when God reveals how temporary this life is and this world is, when you—when you lose your job, when the stock market crashes, when your furnace goes out, when the car's transmission is shot, when there's a snake in the basement, when your husband refuses to lead you in family worship, when your children rebel against you and their creator, even when the sun goes dark and the stars fall from your sky, when this calamity comes, then and especially then you're to remember that Jesus is at the door.

Judgment is at the door. The return in power and glory is at the door. And so whether it comes through the day of judgment or whether it comes through our death, we must be ready. You must be ready.

You must be found trusting in Christ. You must flee from sin. Repent and confess your sins quickly. Pray for God's sustaining grace and walk by the Holy Spirit.

Not to make yourself secure, but because the faithful Christ preserves and gathers every one of his people.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that we would trust you, that we would trust in your word, that we would not be shaken. Well, said differently, I pray that we would trust in you, the only thing that will not be shaken, because the shaking will come.

All the created things are going to be shaken. It's only in you and your word and your your ability to save that we can put our trust, we can put our faith and that we can live securely. Heavenly Father, give us this faith. Let us look to you, the conqueror of sin and death, who's promised—because you've shown us— the hope of the resurrection, the hope that not even death can overcome your promises.

Heavenly Father, we ask for help with this. We are weak. We are weak and we're so easily distracted by the things that are created, the things of this world, this life. We ask that you would help us in Jesus' name. Amen.