My God and My Country

The Gospel According to Mark

Chapter 13:5-13

5 And Jesus answered them, and began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you.
6 For many shall come in my Name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many.
7 Furthermore when ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars, be ye not troubled, for such things must needs be: but the end shall not be yet.
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes in divers quarters, and there shall be famine and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
9 But take ye heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to the Councils, and to the Synagogues: ye shall be beaten, and brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimonial unto them.
10 And the Gospel must first be published among all nations.
11 But when they lead you, and deliver you up, be not careful before hand, neither study what ye shall say: but what is given you at the same time, that speak: for it is not you that speak, but the holy Ghost.
12 Yea, and the brother shall deliver the brother to death, and the father the son, and the children shall rise against their parents, and shall cause them to die.
13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my Name’s sake: but whosoever shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved.


Related scripture:

Verse 10 – Read Matthew 24:14

“Our Lord Jesus, in reply to the disciples' question, does not so much satisfy their curiosity as direct their consciences. When many are deceived, we should thereby be awakened to look to ourselves. And the disciples of Christ, if it be not their own fault, may enjoy holy security and peace of mind, when all around is in disorder. But they must take heed that they are not drawn away from Christ and their duty to him, by the sufferings they will meet with for his sake. They shall be hated of all men: trouble enough! Yet the work they were called to should be carried on and prosper. Though they may be crushed and borne down, the gospel cannot be. The salvation promised is more than deliverance from evil, it is everlasting blessedness.” - Matthew Henry – Theologian


“If we extend these prophetical sayings so as to reach onwards to the end of all things, we must then understand the expression, "all the nations," in its most unrestricted sense; so that the prophecy announces the universal proclamation of the gospel over the whole inhabited earth as an event which is to precede the time of the end. It is interesting to observe the difference in the amount of knowledge possessed by us of this earth and its population at the present time, as compared with the knowledge which men had of it at the time when our Lord delivered this prediction. It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century, nearly fifteen hundred years after Christ, that Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci laid open that other hemisphere which takes its name from Amerigo; and there are few facts more interesting to a philosophic mind than the discovery of this new continent, now so important to us in England as the chief receptacle, together with Australia, of our redundant population. But this new world, as we call it, although there are material evidences that portions of it at least were occupied in very remote times by men of high civilization, was present to the mind of our Lord when he said that "the gospel must first be preached unto all the nations." So that the prophecy expands, as the ages roll onwards and the population of this earth increases; and it still demands its fulfillment, embracing the vast multitudes now dwelling on the face of the earth to the number of about 1,450,000,000. Such a consideration may well lead us to the inference that we are now approaching sensibly nearer to the end of the world. There are no other new worlds like America or Australia now to be discovered. The whole face of the earth is now laid open to us; and there is now hardly any part of the world which has not at some time or other received the message of salvation.”
Source: The Pulpit Commentary