The Final Warning Written in RED
Scripture Reference: Revelation 22:12-21
Preached at Mount Zion Baptist Church on April 7, 2019
Delivered by Rev. John Daniel Johnson
(Powerpoint is available free of charge if you email me at saved2follow@hotmail.com and request them.)
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Illustration—
This past week, we were in Adel, Georgia, for my mother-in-law’s funeral. Jessica needed to spend a little time alone with her relatives, so to keep the distraction down, I took the two little girls with me and we went to the hotel room. If you haven’t been locked in a hotel room lately, there’s not too much to do except sleep or watch television. We’ll while I was taking turns doing both of those things, I happen to wake up just in time to catch my daughters playing a game. I watched as one buried her hands into her eyes and began counting… “5-6-7-8-9-10.” As one was counting, the other was hiding. There wasn’t but a couple of places in the room to hide, but they played the game like there was a forest of hiding places. As one hid, the other counted. As one was separated from the other, one waited patiently until time ran out. As one stood in the darkness and waited, the other was poised to go and get them. Then the countdown started again, “5-6-7-8-9-10…Ready or Not, Here I Come!”
With that thought in mind, I want us to examine Christ’s last and final message to the world. Those final words, recorded in Revelation 22, are written in red as a warning to those who hear His word. His final message is simple, “Ready or Not…Here I Come!”
Illustration—
If knew today was going to be your last, what would your final words be? What would you want your last word to the world be?
Steven the First Martyr's Final Words:
"Lord Jesus, recieve my spirit."
Michelangelo's final words:
"I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin,
charging them to remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ."
Mother Teresa's Final Words:
Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you.
Jessica’s Mom’s Final Writing in Her Bible:
“I’m Safe in God’s Arms.”
When I was a boy the cry of the church was, “Jesus is coming!” All through my teenage years, every evangelist who came to preach in my father’s church had a stirring message about the soon return of Christ. Even today their sermons remain burned in my memory: “The Bible says Christ will come like a thief in the night, when you least expect him. It will happen in the twinkling of an eye, with the sound of a trumpet. You must be ready at all times.”
The powerful cry, “Jesus is coming!” is seldom heard in God’s house today. Very few Christians live with a sense of expectancy, looking and yearning for Jesus’ return. How has this happened?
Joel Osteen stated, “Young, old, Democrats, Republicans, Protestants, Catholics, Longhorns, Aggies, Jewish, Buddhists, all kinds of people here, this is what Heaven is going to be like..." However, this is not what God’s Word says!
The New Testament gives many warnings that mockers will appear in the last days, ridiculing the doctrine of Christ’s coming.
“…Scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.”
(2 Peter 3:3-6)
I can make you this promise; however. As long as the LORD allows me to pastor here, my message will always be: Christ and Him crucified. I’ll always preach that He is the only way to Heaven. I’ll always tell you that Hell is Hot. I’ll always tell you that the LORD is going to return one day and that He is coming back for a people that have placed their faith in Him, having washed their sins away by the Blood of the Lamb. I’ll always preach that on that third day, after being crucified that Jesus rose from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of God. I’ll always tell people that we need to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Amen, this is the Good News.
Truth—this may not attract the crowd, but it will save sinner.
And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him
who hears say, “Come!”
(Revelation 22:17)
This verse shows us the very last cry, or prayer, of the Holy Spirit, when he knows his work on earth is about to be completed: “Come, Lord Jesus!” This cry of the Spirit is not directed to men but to Christ.
The Final Warning Written in RED
A. Hear the Promise of Christ
B. Know the Perilous Times Before Christ
Why don’t people recognize the times?
a. They are willingly ignorant.
b. They are in objection to their condition.
C. Daily be Preparing for Christ
a. I’ve often heard it said: “Any day above ground is a good day, or any day with the living is a good day.” But do we really understand that this world is not the place of the living, but a place of the dieing. Heaven is the place of the living.
b. 1 Thessalonians 5:6, “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober [self-controlled].
c. How can we prepare for Christ’s return?
1) Make sure that you can stand blameless before Jesus.
2) Make sure that you have forgiven and been forgiven.
3) Make sure that you are about the Father's business.
4) Make sure that you are in the Father's Word.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
(2 Timothy 2:15)
5) Make sure that you are living like it could be your last.
D. Realize the Proximity of Christ
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord
one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count
slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any
should perish but that all should come to repentance.10 But the
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the
heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements
will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that
are in it will be burned up.
(2 Peter 3:8-10)
E. Continually Pursue After Christ
a. Continually pray…continually worship…continually praise the Lord who is coming to take us.
b. Don’t slack. Do even more as you know day approaches.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to
good works: 25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another:
and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
(Hebrews 10:24-25)
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