On September 15 2001 President George W. Bush Speaking to the Nation from Camp David encouraged the American people to prepare themselves for a prolonged conflict we now know as the war on terror. And to the US armed forces he delivered a blunt, clear message: "Everybody who wears the uniform: Get ready."
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.
Transition: 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:
Sometimes, when everything goes wrong;
When days are short and nights are long,
When wash day brings so dull a sky,
That not a single thing will dry.
And when the kitchen chimney smokes,
And when there’s none so "old" as folks;
When friends deplore my faded youth,
And when the baby cuts a tooth
While John, the baby last but one,
Clings round my skirts till day is done;
And fat, good-natured Jane is glum
And butcher’s man forgets to come.
Sometimes I say, on days like these
I get a sudden gleam of bliss.
Not on some sunny day of ease
He’ll come...but on a day like this.
(christianglobe.com/illustrations)
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?"
