I Will Come Again!

When President Roosevelt ordered him to leave the Philippines and go to Australia, he spoke these words that went down in the history books, “I shall return.”

In 1945 President Roosevelt sent him back. A year later, the Japanese surrendered to him and ended the war.

But MacArthur is not the first to utter the words, “I shall return!” The Lord Jesus uttered almost these identical words hundreds of years before.

He said it this way in John 14:2-3, “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I WILL COME AGAIN, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

The Lord Jesus has promised to return to gather His church.

Knowing that He is going to return for His church any moment now, HOW SHOULD WE AS CHRISTIANS LIVE OUR LIVES?

In the parable of the distribution of pounds, in Luke 19:13, Jesus tells us how Christians should live until He returns. He said, “Occupy till I come.” We get our word “occupation” from the word “Occupy”.

So the Lord is saying, until he RETURNS for the church we should all find the job we can do, and BE BUSY WORKING FOR THE LORD.

If He were to return today, how should He find us? He tells us:

I. BE SOBER

Look at 1 Peter 4:7, we read, “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore SOBER, and WATCH unto prayer.”

Look at the words SOBER and WATCH. These two words bring a double emphasis.

• BE SOBER - to be of sound mind

• WATCH - to be sober (sound mind) and watch

In other words, as we are looking for the return of Christ, we need to make sure that we do not have the SAME MINDSET the lost world has.

WHY? Because it is obvious that the lost world is not looking for Christ to return. The reason we know that, is because if they thought He would return soon, they would not be living in sin.

God wants Christians to live each day with a SOUND MIND.

One of the biggest traps that Christians can fall into each day is to conform to the way the lost world thinks.

HOW DO THEY THINK? They don’t! They allow others to do their thinking for them. They do not believe in thinking things through, they simply follow others, and allow them to do their thinking for them.

Illus: They remind us of these journalists on television. Frequently the President addresses the nation. As soon as he completes his address, these journalists appear on television. They tell us what we just heard him say, twisting it to what they want us to think he said.

We live in an age when very few people think for themselves. They are being shaped and molded by the lost world in which they live.

Illus: It is difficult these days to find people like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who will say, “No we will not bow to the gods of this earth. We refuse to be to be cut from the same mold that everyone else is cut from.”

We live in a society today that has molded us and shaped us into what they want us to be.

Romans 12:2 states, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

There are all kinds of people who are trying to get into your mind.

• THE POLITICAL LEADERS WANT TO SHAPE YOUR WAY OF THINKING

• THE FASHION INDUSTRY WANTS TO SHAPE YOUR WAY OF THINKING

• THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY WANTS TO SHAPE YOUR WAY OF THINKING

• THE JOURNALISTS WANT TO SHAPE YOUR WAY OF THINKING

• THE RADIO TALK SHOW HOSTS WANT TO SHAPE YOUR WAY OF THINKING

• HOLLYWOOD WANTS TO SHAPE YOUR WAY OF THINKING

Everywhere we turn these days, we have people who are battling to see who can get control of our minds.

But listen, we CANNOT and we MUST NOT and we WILL NOT allow them to mold us and shape our minds.

This is why God’s Word says in Romans 12:2, “And be not conformed to this world…”

Look at the word, “conformed”, this is the Greek word suschematizo, (Pronounced as soos-khay-mat-id'-zo) which means to fashion alike, to conform to the same pattern.

God’s Word says, “Be not conformed”. Why?

• BECAUSE THE WAY THEY THINK IS WRONG

• BECAUSE THE WAY THEY LIVE IS WRONG

What they want us to be is the opposite of what God wants us to be.