Living Ready Series

Introduction

Video Ill.: Til Kingdom Come

I think that was a pretty good summary of what we discussed last week — Scripture teaches us that Jesus is coming. We do not know when. We can know that it will be soon. Most importantly, we must be ready and waiting.

On Firm Ground

Source: Will Norton, Jr., in Christianity Today.Christian Reader, Vol. 32, no. 6.

https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/1998/june/5189.html

Copied from Preaching Today

Before his novels The Firm, Pelican Brief, and The Client catapulted John Grisham to the status of "commercial supernova" — as Newsweek called him — he was an unknown, small-town lawyer. Today, with all the notoriety, Grisham makes a concerted effort to focus on things that have lasting meaning, including his faith in God. Grisham remembers, as a young law student, the remarkable advice of a friend. He writes:

One of my best friends in college died when he was 25, just a few years after we graduated from Mississippi State University. I was in law school, and he called me one day and wanted to get together. So we had lunch, and he told me he had cancer. I couldn't believe it.

"What do you do when you realize you are about to die?" I asked.

"It's real simple," he said. "You get things right with God, and you spend as much time with those you love as you can. Then you settle up with everybody else."

Finally he said, "You know, really, you ought to live every day like you have only a few more days to live."

I haven't forgotten those words.

Outline and some thoughts based on https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/sbc-life-articles/living-in-light-of-jesus-return/

Jason Allen

SBC Life

May 1, 2013

Martin Luther once quipped in reference to Jesus’ second coming that, “There are two days in my calendar: this day and that day.”

We have come a long way since Luther’s statement. Most believers lean dramatically in one of two directions.

Some are all about predicting the timing of Jesus’ return. Of course, as we studied last week, to do so is in vain. Jesus stated that no one knows the day or hour, not even Him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping

But that hasn’t stopped many from trying. The most infamous prognosticator in recent years was Harold Camping, who predicted the specific date of Jesus’ return to be September 6, 1994. When that date failed, he revised the date to be September 29, then October 2. In 2005, he predicted that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011, after which "there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world.” When that date came and went, and he had embarrassed himself yet again, he reportedly later admitted in a private interview that he no longer believed that anyone could know the time of Jesus’ return. He passed away on December 15, 2013. His time had come at the age of 92.

As irresponsible as Camping and folks like him are, perhaps a greater danger facing the church is not being so excited about Jesus’ return and planning the date, but a slumbering church that acts as though Jesus isn’t returning at all.

This seems especially to be the case, it feels, in the year 2024.

Jesus warned about this in a story we read last week. I want to read it again this morning.

From Matthew 25, we read:

1 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The || bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your || oil; our lamps are going out.’

9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with || him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

11 “Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said. ‘Open the door for us!’

12 “But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’

13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. (Matthew 25, NIV)