Mayor Gerardo Balmori
The Salvation Army
As the Lord Jesus Christ prepared to meet the final conflict of his earthly ministry he spoke to his
followers about the things that would come in the last days and delivered a similarly clear
message:
Proposition: I am coming at a time you don’t expect, Get Ready.
In the course of his teaching about that day of return, Jesus makes several important points about
"the Day of the Lord" which all of us would do well to understand. The first is that it is a day of...
1. Secrecy v. 36"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the
Son, but only the Father.
In the year 375 AD an early Christian writer proclaimed: "There is no doubt that the Antichrist has
already been born. Firmly established in his early years and in a few years will achieve supreme
power."
Hippolytus wrote that Christ would come back in the year 500.
The year surrounding the year 1000 were filled with predictions of the coming of Christ… It was
recorded that people were so sure of the Lord’s coming that they didn’t even plant their crops.
In the 1500’s Martin Luther wrote, "We have reached the time of the white horse of the
Apocalypse. This world won’t last any longer.
A little know fact was that Christopher Columbus was a student of biblical prophecy. He wrote a
volume called "The Book of Prophecies," in, which he predicted that the world would end in 1556.
He even wrote, "There is no doubt that the world must end in one hundred fifty five years.
The year 1666 saw an explosion in end times speculation. One pastor wrote in his journal, "every
time a storm has hit this year the church was full of people waiting for Jesus."
In 1800 William Miller predicted the return of Christ in 1844 All over the Northeast, half a million
Adventists awaited the end of the world on April 3, 1843. Journalists had a field day. Reportedly
some disciples were on mountaintops, hoping for a head start to heaven. Others were in
graveyards, planning to ascend in union with their departed loved ones. Some high society ladies
clustered together outside Philadelphia to avoid entering God’s holy kingdom amid the common
herd.
In 1992 Harold Camping predicted the end, again nothing happened and he changed his date to
1993 and then 1994. (Stephen Pace "Ready or Not Here I come" on sermoncentral.com)
All of these people had one thing in common. They must’ve missed the text we read today, that no
man knows the day and the hour. Our Lord’s point is simply this: Be ready all the time. Yes, at
other times Jesus says to watch for the signs--but not so that we can put off being ready, but so
that we will be ever expectant of his return.
At the height of WWII, Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was imprisoned for taking a
stand against Hitler. Yet he continued to urge fellow believers to resist Nazi tyranny. A group of
Christians, believing that Hitler was the Antichrist, asked Bonhoeffer, "Why do you expose
yourself to all this danger? Jesus will return any day, and all your work and suffering will be for
nothing." Bonhoeffer replied,
"If Jesus returns tomorrow, then tomorrow I’ll rest from my labor. But today I have work to do. I
must continue the struggle until it’s finished." (Daily Bread, November 10, 1991.)
Bonhoefer was right, it is not for us to try to determine the "when" of the Lord’s coming, it is for us
to be expectant of his coming that we might be found doing what the Master has called us to do. In
fact the verses immediately following our reading make that point exactly: The servants ought to
be found serving the master when he returns...at an unknown, secret time.
The second important thing I note about the day of the Lord is that it will be a day of...
2. Selection vv. 40-41 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two
women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
The first thing that I note here is that Jesus describes people doing everyday activities--the day of
the Lord is apparently an ordinary day--more about that in the final point. The next thing I note
though is that the people in question are doing the same activities whether they are taken or left.
If it was me, I think I would’ve said, "One man was at a prayer meeting and the other was at a
casino in Las Vegas" Or, "one woman was home cooking dinner and the other was out on the
town."
But Jesus says, here are two outwardly identical people, one is selected the other is rejected. So
then what is the selection based upon? Obviously it’s something internal. If we look at the
remainder of Jesus’ teaching it becomes clear.
John 3:16-18 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not
condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed
in the name of God’s one and only Son."
If these words of the Lord are true, then the selection has really already taken place before the day
of the Lord arrives, and it was made not by Him, but by each individual. Each who has chosen to
put their trust in Christ for salvation has selected Him. If we wish to be one of those selected on
that day we must trust with all of our hearts that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is sufficient for
our salvation.
Christian Commentator Warren Wiersbe, tells about a frontier town where a horse bolted and ran
away with a wagon carrying a little boy. Seeing the child in danger, a young man risked his life to
catch the horse and stop the wagon. The child who was saved grew up to become a lawless man,
and one day he stood before a judge to be sentenced for a serious crime. The prisoner recognized
the judge as the man who, years before had saved his life; so he pled for mercy on the basis of that
experience. But the words from the bench silenced his plea: "Young man, then I was your savior;
today I am your judge, and I must sentence you to be hanged." One day Jesus Christ will say to
rebellious sinners, "During that long day of grace, I was the Savior, and I would have forgiven you.
But today I am your Judge." (Meet Yourself in the Psalms)
On that Day that Jesus spoke of in our text today, the Judge will select those who have selected to
trust in His marvelous grace.
Finally, Jesus makes it clear that that Day will be a...
3. Surprise vv. 42-44 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord
will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the
thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So
you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect
him."
Note that he takes it further than just saying we don’t know when, he says that the time will be
when we do NOT expect Him. Throughout our text Jesus has taken care to paint the day of the
Lord as an ordinary day--not Jan 1, 2000, not a day when his followers are gathered because
someone predicted his coming on that day. But a day like the one when Noah got into the ark,
when weddings and funerals and family meals and plowing are going on just like usual.
He uses the illustration of being prepared for a thief. When do you prepare for a thief? Well if
you’re going to be prepared it has to be always. The point is Jesus wants us to be doing the right
thing all the time.
If you knew this were the day, how would you spend it differently? Would you tell your neighbors
about Jesus? Would you change your television viewing? Would you commit yourself fully to the
Lord for the first time?
Well then what if it weren’t until tomorrow? Could those things wait then? What if it were next
week? Or next year?
Well then let me ask you this then: Why can’t you do those things anyway? Are we really living as if
we expect Jesus to be true to His word?
A rural housewife, Fay Inchfawn, who lived a generation ago, wrote these lines which really
capture the spirit of Jesus teaching about that coming day:
Jesus has promised that he will return. Do we believe Him? Do our lives reflect an expectancy that
he will come at a moment that we think--NOT?
Most importantly of all, have you personally made the selection to trust in what he has done to
save you from sin? Does your heart cry out, "Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus?"
