Will You Be Worth Stealing

"Will You Be Worth Stealing"

12/12/93 Text Matt. 24 Psalm 24:1-10 Matt 24:1-31

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One day a family decided to go out and have a good time

together. It was a delightful day, everybody got along. The food

was good, and the movie they went had a good story to it. When

they returned home, their joy quickly turned to sorrow and anger.

Someone had broken the lock on the door and gone in.

If you had been there you would have heard Mom yell, the

color TV is gone, Susie cried, my stereo is gone, Bob yelled my

Sega Genesis is missing, Dad screamed, they took my computer.

Rick ran to the basement to see if they had taken his bike that

he intended to one day get fixed. It had a flat tire and a

ripped seat.

He came running up stairs to let his sister know, they

didn’t take my bike, they didn’t take my bike. Susie looked at

him, and said "Rick, it wasn’t worth stealing."

My friends there is a Thief that is roaming the entire

world, and one day He is going to strike out. He’s going to take

everything that He considers worth stealing. His name is Jesus.

Jesus says that He is coming like a thief in the night to snatch

away all those that belong to Him. Jesus said, "watch and pray

because you do not know the hour in which I will return." Just

like the thief, Jesus will be in and out in a hurry, and "He’s

only going to take what’s he considers to be valuable ." It will

happen in the twinkling of an eye.

Husband and wife about to kiss each other in bed, suddenly

she disappears and he’s left searching. Two children playing

Mario Brothers on Super Nintendo together, instantly one is gone,

the other is left. Congregation singing the last hymn in worship

service, swoosh 75% of the congregation is missing. The quarter

back throws the ball to the receiver for the winning touchdown,

he’s wide open and before the cheering crowd, the receiver disap

pears and the ball falls aimlessly to the ground.

All over the world, immediately there are planes without

pilots, cars without drivers, children without parents. Confusion

throughout the world will be the name of the game when the Thief

hits. Will you be valuable enough for the thief to grab you, or

will you be left behind to face the cruelty of the power of Satan

that is going to hit this world?

How will it feel to know that some of your family was sto

len, but you and the rest were not? How will it be to have

pretended that you were a Christian, and now the Christians are

gone, but you’re still here? How frightening it will be to know

that after the Thief has stolen the church, then will great

tribulation come upon the earth? No longer can you can call Mom,

or expect your wife to fix your food, or go to church and meet

your friends, or expect to finally make the commitment to Jesus

that you’ve been putting off for years?

We have lost a healthy fear of God in our world today? We

don’t believe that God will punish us, and we no longer believe

that Hell is a real place. There are 67 verses in the New Testa

ment that deals with hell. Jesus speaks 45 of them. If anybody

knows whether hell is real or not, Jesus should. He’s the only

one that has spent three days dead, and then came back to let us

know what it was like.

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Š I knew a man who suffered a heart attack and his heart had

stopped beating. The doctors got his heart back to beating. Now

this man had nothing to do with God, he mistreated his girlfriend

of some 30 years horribly with his fists and his language, and he

was just a mean person. He told me that when he was on the table

he felt himself leaving his body. He heard the most peaceful

music you could imagine.

He felt being pulled through a tunnel with a bright light

at the end. His experience did not change his evil lifestyle one

bit. He was convinced that he was on his way to heaven. But it’s

possible that the light he saw was being produced by the burning

flames of hell. Heat gives off light.

When Jesus tells those who have talked the talked, but not

walked the walk to depart from him, they’re not free to simply go

where they would like to go. Jesus says depart from me and go to

the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.