Let’s pray. God, we give you our attention. We take our eyes and our focus off of the distractions of this day and this week. You have our attention. Our thoughts, our concerns—they are not with the food that we’ll eat or the game that we’ll watch; they are on you. God, I know that it is not an accident that we sit here in this room today, that the message that you have today for us is the most important message that we can hear and respond to in this life. God, would you give us ears to hear? Lord, I know there are some in this room who don’t really even want to be here. Church, for them, is kind of a chore. They’re here because they feel like they have to be here. Would you speak to them today, God? Would the wind of your Holy Spirit, Father, please blow strongly within these walls? You have our attention. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
It’s a Thursday evening and, like most Thursdays, you turn on the late night news. It’s pretty depressing really. The economy has gotten worse. There is news of yet another earthquake and with it a tsunami warning. This one looks like it’ll be worse than the one before. The images of death and destruction from wars being waged around the world begin to show on your television, but you’ve grown accustomed to them by now. You barely…you barely even blink. Just before going to commercial, the anchorman promises to update you on the latest pandemic that is sweeping the planet. You think about getting up, grabbing something to eat during the commercial, but you just don’t have the energy. And it’s during the commercial that you hear a noise. It doesn’t start off loud at first but quickly it grows to a deafening sound. Your mind tries to identify, “What is that noise? What is it?” You hit mute on the television. You yell for your family, but you can’t even hear the sound of your own voice. That’s how loud it is. Is it a tornado siren? It’s too loud for that. The house alarm? No. The sound system from somewhere? No, it doesn’t seem to be coming from any one direction. It seems to be everywhere. It’s as if you are surrounded by thousands of trumpets. You rush to the window and you look outside, and, as you do, you see your neighbor across the street come out into his yard. He falls to his knees as he looks up into the sky, and he is shaking his head “no” and he’s yelling something, but it’s too loud. What is he looking at?
You rush out the front door. Cars have come to a stop in the street. Adults and children…your neighbors have poured out of their houses…and you look with them and with the rest of the planet up into the sky to see what has never been seen before. Though it is nighttime, the light is bright and it is blinding. You open your eyes wider. You strain to see. What is it? You look away from the light trying to get your eyes to adjust and you look back up and the skies part. And then you see it! Great white horse and on the horse a King. This is no baby Jesus. His eyes are ablaze with fire. On His head He wears a crown. Coming behind Him are the armies of heaven, each one on their own white horse. The angels have filled the sky. In unison they are repeating, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!” This can’t be real and yet it is. This is not a movie. This is not science-fiction. These are not special effects. Jesus has returned…and in that moment nothing else matters. You don’t realize it but the rest of your family has come out on the front lawn with you. You join your family and your neighbors, and you join every entertainer, every athlete, every ruler, every king, every politician, every president, every CEO, every man, woman and child on the planet Earth and you fall to your knees before the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Jesus has returned!
Are you ready for that? Are you ready for that moment? The Bible warns and warns and warns, “Jesus is coming again.” Are you ready? Two-hundred and sixty chapters in the New Testament—there are hundreds of verses that point us to the soon-coming-Christ. Three times in the book of Revelation Jesus says, “I’m coming again. I’m coming soon. I’m coming soon.” Are you ready for that?
In this series on warnings we’ve talked about how God will try to get our attention now to save us from something later—some kind of destruction later. He wants us to respond now because He wants what is best for us later. In His love for us He has warned us clearly now that His Son will return later, and He wants us to respond.
These warnings come not only in Scripture but they have come to you personally and they have come to you timely. There have been different times in your life where God has tried to get your attention. He has tried to speak this truth into your life. Through a set of circumstances, through this train wreck that has happened to you in your family, through some sickness or some illness or some blessing—God has tried to say, “Listen, you need to take stock of your life. You need to be prepared because the moment is coming when Jesus will return, and in that moment it’s the only thing that will matter.” Are you ready?
The Bible tells us that when Jesus returns, for those of us who have put our trust in Jesus Christ and we’ve received His grace and His forgiveness in our lives, then it’s going to be a day to celebrate! For some of you, the return of Christ…as Christians, it is a promise to celebrate. It is the day we anticipate with great joy, with great hope. Where Jesus will return and He will say, “I’ve had enough—enough death, enough sickness, enough war, enough pain, enough suffering, enough! I’m making all things new.” We wait for that. It is a promise that we hold onto. We eagerly anticipate it.
For some of you it is a promise to celebrate, but for some of you this is a grave warning. It is a warning. Because when Jesus returns He has promised eternal life in heaven to all who have put their trust in Jesus Christ, but He has warned of eternal destruction in Hell to all who have rejected Him. And in His love for you, He warns, He warns, He warns, “You need to be ready for this moment. It’s coming.” And the question is, “Have you responded to that? Do you need to?” Do you need to respond now to what will one day come? Is there a decision that you need to make? Is there a sin that you need to confess? Is there a lifestyle you need to repent of? Is there an attitude you need to change? Is there a habit you need some help with? Is there a vow that you need to be keeping? Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there someone you need to ask forgiveness from? The warning…the warning is, Jesus will return and we need to be ready for that moment.
If you have your Bibles, turn to 2 Peter…2 Peter. While you turn there can we just kind of be honest? Some of you are really annoyed with this sermon already. (Laughter) Aren’t you? I mean, isn’t that true? You’d sneak out now but it would be awkward. You’re annoyed with this. This isn’t what you want to do today. It just isn’t. You woke up feeling pretty good, excited about what you would do this afternoon. Life is going pretty well, enjoying a nice, relaxing weekend. And you come to church and it’s the end of the world. (Laughter) And it just…it just kind of annoys you. It’s like you’re having this really nice dinner and enjoying yourself at this meal and somebody comes in and pulls the fire alarm. “Did they have to pull it now? Can’t I finish my meal before you pull the fire alarm?” I don’t really like pulling the alarm, but there is a fire. But I understand. Some of you just don’t like this.
Some of you are kind of apathetic to this—right?—because you’ve heard these warnings before. You went to church camp growing up and you’ve been in church most of your life. You’ve walked by the street preacher who is yelling at you, and you’ve kind of heard about this return of Jesus and the end of the world and it’s…you’ve seen the movie before. And it doesn’t really even get your attention much. You’re mostly just indifferent to it. Days come and days go and months have passed, and you’ve never really looked at yourself in the mirror and asked, “Am I ready? Am I ready for His return?”
Some of you, when you hear about the return of Christ, you are afraid. And there is within you this sense of panic because you know it’s real and you know you’re not ready. But understand this. These warnings that Jesus gives us He gives in love. He gives because He wants you to be ready. He gives you these warnings because He wants to spend eternity with you in heaven.
In 2 Peter chapter 3, Peter is going to write to those who would live in the last days and would question the return of Christ, those who are skeptical that Jesus would come back at all. Here is what Peter says (chapter 3, verse 3). “First of all,” he says, “you must understand that in the last days…” The last days, the end times… There are a number of passages in Scripture that teach us about what we can expect in those days. He says (paraphrased), “In those days here is what will happen. Scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is it? Where is this “coming” he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’”
Peter is addressing the spirit that will take place in the final days. It will be a spirit of, “Ah, you know what. I don’t think He’s coming. If He’s coming He’s not coming today, because…well…everything just kind of goes on as it has from the beginning. I mean, from the time Jesus ascended into heaven…it’s been like 730,000 plus days…nothing’s happened. Nothing’s going to happen today.”
In fact, there are some scoffers who, in the last days, will say, “Look, if Jesus…if Jesus hasn’t come back yet then He’s not really going to come back at all. If He was gonna come back, He would’ve come back by now. He hasn’t come back, so…” You know, maybe once or twice a year you’ll think about these things but one day turns into the next. Today is not going to be any different than yesterday.
And Peter just kind of addresses this spirit. Now it’s completely illogical— right?—to say that something isn’t going to happen because it hasn’t happened. It’s illogical. But I understand how we kind of reach this point where it just is no longer a primary focus in our lives. It’s just not something we think about. Just doesn’t seem real. It just seems…it’s not…it’s just so unlikely.
Do you remember school growing up that (we) had the tornado drills, fire drills? Do you remember those? In first grade and kindergarten, if you’re like me, you took those things pretty seriously as a kid, right? I mean, if it was a first grader the tornado siren would go off and it’s a tornado drill but you’re thinking, “It’s the real thing. This could be the real thing.” You go out in the hallway and you assume the most humiliating position up against the brick wall, but you don’t care. I mean, your heart is pounding and you… “This could be it.” The fire alarm goes off. I was the first one out the door. We couldn’t run, but I was a good speed walker. Always have been. (Laughter) And I speed walked out there. Stop, drop and roll. Stop, drop and roll. And you’re ready, right? You’re ready because this could be it. This could be it.
Well, here is what happens. Second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth…You get into high school. You’ve had a lot of these warnings. You’ve heard them a lot. The sirens have gone off quite often and they don’t really have much impact anymore. In fact, they’re almost annoying really…when the sirens go off. They go off and you find yourself thinking, “Ugh, you know what. Could I just finish this chapter? Could I just finish writing this note to my friend?” The teacher is even annoyed. She says, “Look, we’ll finish this section; then we’ll go outside, okay?” She doesn’t want to go. She’s tired of it too. Nobody thinks it’s real because there have been so many days that have come and gone and there has never been a tornado. There has never been a fire. Today’s not going to be any different.
Peter says, “Look, that’s what it’s going to be like on the day Jesus returns.” Most people will say, “It’s not going to be today because it wasn’t yesterday and it wasn’t the day before that, and it’s not going to be today.” And…and it could be. It could be today.
The Bible would teach that we live with this daily sense of readiness. That every day we look at ourselves in the mirror and we say, “It could be. It could be today.” In verse 10 Peter describes what this day will be like. He says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.” And the thief idea in Scripture is a pretty common analogy to describe what the day will be like when Christ returns. The thief doesn’t give a heads up. The thief doesn’t say, “Eh, here is where I’m going to show up. It’s going to be between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.” He doesn’t do that. The thief comes unexpectedly and that is how the Bible paints this picture of Christ’s return.
But what we do see in Scripture are warning signs that show us that the coming of Christ is drawing near. There are warning signs that let us know we are getting closer and these are the last days. Now Jesus refers to those warning signs in Matthew chapter 24 as “birth pains”…as birth pains.
Now we’re going to look at some of these warning signs…some of these birth pains…but there are a few things I want to point out first. Number one, these warning signs that we’re going to look at…these are not…these are not pieces of a puzzle that you put together. These are not factors of an equation that you work out and come up with an answer and say, “Oh, well, this is when Christ is going to return because X means Y and this number means that,” and you put it all together and here is the date. It’s not a map that you follow and X marks the spot. Jesus said, “No one knows the day. No one knows the hour.” So when some people approach the prophesies of Scripture and they say, “Look, here is where it’s pointing to. Here is the only time. It has to be within this period of time.” Be careful because they are false prophets. The Bible says that no one knows the day or the hour. Jesus said that. So if someone claims to know that, they are a false prophet.
The second thing—understand that as we look at these prophesies that this is not a list of things that have to play out before Jesus is allowed to come back, right? There is no list of things that have to happen in order for Christ to return and He is not going to return until all these things happen. Any prophesy in Scripture…you can read a pretty legitimate argument that it even was fulfilled in the 1st century. You can read the New Testament writers. All of them, inspired by the Holy Spirit, were convinced that they would see the return of Christ in their lifetime. Why is that? Because the prophesies are given to us to help us live with this sense of readiness, so each generation will look to the sky and say, “Maybe today. Maybe today.”
And we need to be careful as well as we look at these warning signs not to get caught up in them—in the how and the what and the when of the end times—because the message of the end times….two words: Be ready. Paul addresses the spirit of kind of getting off-sides with this in chapter 3. He says, “Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” We don’t need to address this. We’re not going to get into the details because you know that when Christ comes it will be like a thief in the night.
So we see these as birth pains. That’s how Jesus describes them. Now as a father of four, I know something about birth pains. Not from personal experience but I’ve seen birth pains take place. (Laughter) I mean, I’ve witnessed birth pains. So my job…whenever my wife was in labor my job was to assess the birth pains. I consider myself somewhat of an expert. And so when she was in labor, when she was having the birth pains, two things I’m watching for, right? I’m watching for frequency and intensity. And I’m timing the contractions. “Well, this is how long this one lasted. Here is how far they are apart.” And I’m measuring the intensity. Always got to be careful with that. “Okay, Honey, scale of 1 to 10, right? How much would you say that hurts? One being an amputation; ten being burn at the stake? (Laughter) Start there. Fifteen? Okay. Fifteen it is. No problem.” That was my job. The intensity and the frequency is what you watch for. And as we look at these warning signs this is how we’re seeing them. They are birth pains. We look for frequency; we look for intensity to show us that the return of Christ is drawing near.
So let’s look at some of these together. One warning sign that we will see are the warning signs in nature. Warning signs in nature. Matthew 24, Luke 21—Jesus speaks of earthquakes, famines, sickness and disease. And we’ll see God throughout Scripture use natural disasters to get people’s attention. Whether it’s a flood or whether it is a drought…or when Jesus was crucified it was a great earthquake and the sky turned black. And the Bible says that there will be these natural disasters. Revelation chapter 16 says, “When the seventh seal is opened there will be such a great earthquake that the mountains will crumble and the islands will disappear.” And I suppose this one is a little more on our radar. From a 7.0 quake in Haiti…8.8 quake in Chile, our eyes were opened up a little bit wider. I don’t want to be an alarmist but, as one news headline put it, “Natural disasters are up 400% in two decades.” Probably look a little closer towards the skies.
I was just doing a little research on the frequency and intensity of earthquakes. (I have) a few charts to show you. This one shows from the 1970s and kind of maps…maps the frequency. Another one shows more of the intensity (7.0) and the frequency, because with this size of an earthquake we can go back a lot further. Take a look at that. Notice the last number of years (that) it’s 33 not 38. We’re still…we’re still in the middle of it.
So there are warning signs in nature. There are warning signs in the world. Over the years many people try to interpret the warning signs in the world as gospel. In other words, they will look at the prophesies of Scripture through the lens of cultural happenings or political events in our culture, and they’ll say, “Well, this means this and X means Y,” and they will interpret Scripture through the lens of culture. There is a word for interpreting Scripture. It’s called hermeneutics. One of the first rules of hermeneutics is that you interpret Scripture with Scripture. So always be careful when you hear someone trying to interpret the prophesies of Scripture without using Scripture…other Scripture…but instead trying to use what is happening around them. But there is a place for it. There is certainly a place to look around at the world we live in and try and study the Word of God and the prophesies of the second coming and try and understand what things mean. But just be careful that you don’t say things with certainty when it comes to interpreting the different prophesies.
Let me give you an example. If someone says to you, “Hey, in the book of Revelation, do you know that the locusts…the locusts in the book of Revelation are actually Apache helicopters? That’s what that means.” Really? Because couldn’t they be locusts? I mean, isn’t that possible? And now…you know it used to be Apache helicopters; now I understand that the locusts are actually Blackhawk helicopters. Just be careful with it. Just be careful. You know, people want, oftentimes, to look at these as, like I said, a puzzle—that they’re going to piece it together. So you start trying to make things fit, and the Bible’s message, again, is just to be ready. Be ready. Let these things point you towards the return of Christ. Let them get your attention.
So Jesus says, “In the world you can expect this: That there will be an increase in wars and rumors of wars and nation will rise up against nation.” So we see that. Before 1914 there was never any kind of a universal war, but then we have World War I, World War II. No period witnessed the escalation of wars more so than the 20th century. Since World War II there have been plus 23 million deaths attributed to hundreds of wars, conflicts, rebellions around the world.
There are also warning signs in our culture. Isaiah says that here is what you can expect in our culture: That in the last days people will call good evil and they will call evil good. So here is what it looks like. You’ll have this culture that says the most important value is tolerance but the culture will become increasingly intolerant with the things of God. So don’t be surprised when a child in Pennsylvania is sent home from school because he has written “Jesus loves me” on his lunchbox. Don’t be surprised when a high school student goes to high school and they’re the ones who have to turn their shirt inside out because they’ve got a Scripture reference written across it. Don’t be surprised by that. That’s the type of thing that we’ll see. And Paul, in 2 Timothy, describes the culture in the last days. He says, “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of pleasure, lovers of money.” Glad that doesn’t describe us, right? Maybe we should open our eyes a little wider.
The Bible says that there will be warning signs within the church, that there will be false teachers that will appear more and more within the church. In 2 Timothy 4 it says that these false teachers will be identified because they’ll say “what itching ears want to hear.” They may use the Bible as their text but they’ll only preach certain texts that they think people will want to hear. And part of this prophesy is also this idea that a lot of people will go hear preaching that they want to hear. And Paul says, “Look, you can expect that in the last days that’s going to become a pretty popular thing.”
Jesus says that within the church there is going to be more persecution of Christians. Now we live here in the United States and largely we can live unaware of this, but the 20th century saw more Christians killed for their faith than any century leading up to it. The World Evangelical Alliance estimates that there are 200 million Christians living on the planet right now who daily face death, prison and torture because of their faith in Jesus Christ. You can go to websites like persecution.org and they’ll put up daily…daily articles about persecution being experienced around the world. So on Friday a pastor in Iraq is imprisoned and tortured for baptizing a Muslim. In Bangladesh yesterday multiple homes are burned to the ground of Christians because of their faith. Now right now…right now those sirens…those warning sirens seem like a long ways away. (They) don’t feel very close to home. The noise is distant. But it’s getting closer and you can expect it to get closer still.
Let me tell you how it will look. Here is what it will look like. It will begin…persecution begins with disinformation. It will begin where Christians will be increasingly portrayed as perhaps intolerant, or hypocrisy among Christians will be made a big deal out of, but things like love, generosity, faithfulness won’t be mentioned. You can expect that there will be false accusations and insinuations against Christian leaders. So there is going to be disinformation.
Then after that will come discrimination. Christians will find that a lot of their rights are going to be taken from them. Then you will have within the church things like…the churches will lose tax-exempt status…things like that. A preacher will be accused of a hate crime if he preaches from a certain passage of Scripture. Things like that. And we can expect for there to be an escalation of these things. There is disinformation; it leads to discrimination; discrimination leads to persecution. So we’ll see that within the church.
The good news is that leading up into the end times there will be a revival because, for the first time since perhaps the 1st century, everyone will have a chance to hear and to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Matthew 24:14 says, “And this good news about the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world so that all nations will hear it, and then the end will come.”
We live in a time like we never have before, and I love it—as a preacher, as a pastor. We live in a time…because of technology, because of the internet, because of satellite, we’re able to spread the good news.
As many of you know I make films with City on a Hill Productions, and I’m amazed every week (at) the emails I hear from people around the world. You know, we’ll make something here in Louisville, Kentucky, and now it’s in 17 countries. It’s translated into numerous languages, including Arabic. It’s showing to 23 million people in the Middle East. We live in an exciting time, but it is pointing us to the near return of Jesus Christ.
One of the warning signs that can be open to interpretation but I want to make sure and mention is a warning sign that accompanies a parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 24. Jesus and His disciples are outside the city of Jerusalem. Jesus is predicting the fall of Jerusalem, which would eventually take place in 70 A.D. Kind of as a visual picture of the fall of Jerusalem He curses the fig tree…the fig tree that’s not bearing fruit. He curses this fig tree; it withers. Jesus goes on to explain to the disciples some signs that this will take place, and then He talks about the signs of the end of time. For the disciples…they don’t understand all of this. For them the fall of Jerusalem is the end of time because they can’t imagine the city of Jerusalem collapsing. But as Jesus talks about the end times He says to watch for this withered fig tree to reblossom, and He says the generation that sees this withered fig tree reblossom will not fail to see Him coming again. Now a lot of people interpret the withered fig tree to be the nation of Israel. That the nation of Israel (was) scattered thousands of years, (and in) 1948 the nation of Israel becomes a nation again. No one would have ever imagined it possible. So there are some who would say, “Well, that means 1948…the fig tree blossomed. That means those born of that generation…62 years old…the return of Christ is immanent.” Maybe that is what that means. Since that happened, though, the city of Jerusalem was retaken in 1967. A lot of people said, “Well, that’s what that means. The reblossoming of the fig tree is the retaking of Jerusalem.” We can’t say for certain but these things should get our attention. They should help us sit up and take notice, be more prepared, to be more ready. That is the message.
One of the most telling warning signs is that people will ignore the warning signs. Jesus says in Matthew 24 it will be as it was in the days of Noah where people just kind of go about their day. Everybody is very much caught up in what is happening in this life and the challenges of this life, things of this world, and they don’t really have much time for the preacher who is talking about the end of time. They kind of roll their eyes at that. And Jesus says you can expect that to take place before the return of Christ.
But the message of all these prophesies is to be ready. Jesus makes that clear. Matthew 24:42, “"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” Verse 44, “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you don’t expect Him.” He is coming again. He is coming again. We are warned. Are you ready?
My wife left out of town for like five days this last week. She went to go see some family back in Kansas; I was at home with the four kids. Never done that before. Probably won’t do it again. (Laughter) But we did it for those five days. And my wife runs a pretty tight ship. She keeps the house amazingly clean. I’m not really wired that way so things quickly, shall we say, fell apart? And I was okay with that. I didn’t worry, didn’t panic too much because I knew what time she was coming back. I had her flight schedule. I knew when she would return. So three (or) four hours before I went to hit her…or get her…get her back from the airport. (Laughter) I hit the panic button. That’s what I did at home. I hit the panic button and the kids and I…we just kind of scrambled, right? Getting everything shoved under beds, stuffed under the cushions of the couch, and whatever we had to do. Getting everything ready because we knew she was coming. Now if my wife would have left and said, “You know, I’m not really sure when I’m going to come back. I’m not sure when.” I would have approached those five days much differently. I would’ve said, “Hey, make sure you get the dishes in the dishwasher. She could come any minute! You need to make sure this…” I would have lived with a sense of readiness. And what we see in Scripture as we read through the prophesies is not this, “Well, we’ve got plenty of time because this has to happen, this has to happen, this has…” But the New Testament writers—again, inspired by the Holy Spirit—would say to those living in the 1st century and certainly say to us living in 2010, “Be ready.” Be ready! That is the message.
Peter in 2 Peter explains why it’s taken so long. Here is what he says in verse 8, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise…” God doesn’t see time the way you see time. “He is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” See, we think, “What’s God waiting for? What’s taking Him so long?” We think God is slow, and if He were slow it would reveal Him to be kind of indifferent or apathetic to the pain of this world. God is not slow; God is patient. There is a difference. And Peter says in chapter 3, verse 15, “Bear in mind that the Lord’s patience means salvation.” What is God waiting for? What’s taking so long? He’s not slow; He is patient. His patience means salvation. It is not preacher speak; it is not church talk for me to stand up and say to those of you who don’t know
Jesus as your Savior, He is waiting for you. He’s waiting for you to see the warning and to respond. His patience means salvation and so He waits. The longer He waits the more…the more people will be saved. Is He waiting for you? Is He waiting for you to respond to His warnings?
The day will come. The skies will separate. Jesus will return. The moment He returns a time for warnings will be over. The window of opportunity will be closed. Jesus is coming again and now…now we have an opportunity to respond to that warning. When we see Him return it will be too late. You will kneel. You will kneel. The Bible says, “Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess,” but at that point it will no longer be your choice. So He warns us, and He’s trying to get your attention. Will you respond to the warning?
Jesus is coming again. Is your house in order? Is your house ready? If you’re a Christian this is a great promise to celebrate and we want to do that. If you are not a Christian, let me say, you are not here by accident. You may not realize it today. At some point you will remember this day and you will know God was trying to get your attention. Will you respond to His warning? If you want to talk to someone about your relationship with Jesus or if you want to become a part of our church family…we kind of go on this journey together…you can meet me down front over here in just a moment. I’d ask that you not leave. We’re going to sing a few songs where we worship God together, we celebrate His return, but we also….for those of you who have not responded to Jesus, that you would take a moment and you would ask simply, “Am I ready?” If you need to respond, you can meet me right down front over here—you have plenty of time to make it down here—as we stand together and as we worship.
